The Hand of Seth
by charleygirl
Summary: Late February, 1897. A family curse and a detective who refuses to admit he is ill cause concern for Watson...COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This fic contains elements from the 1975 **_**Doctor Who**_** story _Pyramids of Mars_. The characterisations of Holmes and Watson are based on the performances of Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada series. This story takes place ostensibly between _The Sign of Four_ and _The Devil's Foot_ in the Granada run.**

**Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do not belong to me. _Doctor Who_ elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER ONE

**Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H Watson MD**

**1897**

"What do you know of Egyptology, Watson?"

The question had come out of the blue – I glanced up from the newspaper that my head had been nodding over for the past half an hour to see Sherlock Holmes standing before me on the hearthrug with a large and important-looking envelope in his hand. It took a moment for my sleep-fuddled brain to register the fact that the post must have arrived while I had been dozing.

"Very little, beyond the incredible number of gods they seemed to worship," I said, rubbing at my eyes and smothering a yawn. "Why do you ask?"

In reply he threw the envelope into my lap. "What do you make of that?"

"Heavy," I said, picking up the missive and holding it up to the light. There was a crest on the back – two crossed swords circled by a garland and surmounted by a bird that appeared to be a raven. "Evidently from someone with an impressive pedigree."

"The earls of Harcourt, no less. It was posted this morning, by a man who had lately been a kitchen where a great deal of baking had been taking place. The envelope is addressed in a rather hurried style, by someone who is naturally left-handed but has been using the pen of a person who favours the right. London postmark, single sheet enclosure," Holmes rattled off, in a manner that at the start of our friendship would have astonished me but which I now almost took for granted. "In it the earl's eldest son, Viscount Amsworth, states his intention to consult me on 'a perplexing family matter', at eleven o'clock on Thursday."

"It all sounds perfectly normal," I remarked, "but what is the connection with Egypt? And how do you know that the man is left-handed but using a right-hander's pen?"

Holmes smiled slightly, and returned to his chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. "The pen is simple: the writing leans in the manner typical to many left-handed people, yet it leans _against_ the flow of the pen. Pen nibs become accustomed to the quirks of their user's writing. It is quite clear in this case that Lord Amsworth is left-handed, but for reasons known to himself used a pen belonging to someone who favours the right."

As always, the explanation made perfect sense. "And Egypt?"

He reached a long arm behind him to take down a copy of _Who's Who _from the shelf above my desk, swiftly flicking through the pages to find the entry he wanted. "The Harcourts have long had an association with Egypt. The late earl was Her Majesty's ambassador in Cairo for many years. I recalled that the family had been in the news recently – the British Museum have been attempting to raise enough capital to buy a very rare and important Egyptian statue from the Harcourts."

"Buy it?" I blinked in surprise. "Would it not have been better form for the Harcourts to donate the thing to the museum?"

"So one would imagine, but it appears that the earl is not of a particularly altruistic bent," said Holmes, leaning forwards to hand me the red-bound volume so that I could study the earl's career for myself. He settled back into his chair and dug around in the Persian slipper for some tobacco, packing it tightly into the bowl of his pipe. "There is something of a dispute, I believe, as the Egyptian government would very much like to have the piece returned."

"Is that likely?"

Holmes shrugged. "If the government can afford the price that Harcourt is asking…who can say?" He lit the pipe, taking a long draw upon it. Almost immediately, he broke into a fit of coughing that sent me hurrying to the sideboard for a glass of water. By the time I returned to his side the fit had subsided, but he was chalk white, one hand pressed against his chest. I put the glass into the other, urging him to drink.

"Holmes, are you quite all right?" I asked when he had taken a couple of tentative sips. He had not been entirely himself since returning from a complex case that had taken him away from Baker Street at all hours of the day and night. I knew that he had not been eating properly, and had heard him pacing the sitting room until dawn on more than one occasion.

"I am perfectly well, Watson," he said, somewhat breathlessly, putting the glass aside, "Pray do not disturb yourself on my account."

"I beg to differ. You're running yourself into the ground, old man. Even someone with your constitution can only push his body so far before it cracks under the strain."

"Nonsense. A full night's sleep is all I need."

I decided to leave the matter for the moment, knowing that he would never allow me near him with my medical bag to determine the true state of his health. "Just make sure that you have one," I told him, "I've heard you marching about down here every night for more than a week. You must be exhausted by now."

"Now that I no longer have to devote all my energy to solving such a tangle of a problem, I can spare a little for less than important functions," he replied, and I almost laughed aloud. Only Sherlock Holmes would regard sleep and sustenance as unimportant!

I did not see much of him for the next two days, busy as I was at the surgery and he on some work of his own which he declined to share with me. It was Thursday morning before our paths eventually crossed for more than a few moments, when I came down to breakfast to find him sitting at the table amid a fug of smoke from that foul pipe he usually smoked at that time and surrounded by a drift of discarded newspapers.

I could see immediately that although Mrs Hudson had already been in with the dishes, he had not eaten anything. His plate sat untouched before him, a cup of coffee cooling at his elbow. "You'll do yourself no good if you go on like this," I remarked as I took my seat.

"My apologies, Watson, I do not feel particularly hungry this morning," came the response from behind _The Morning Post_.

I made a grunt of disapproval, knowing that I could hardly force him to eat if he chose not to. "Have you had that sleep you needed?"

"A little." He coughed, whether because of the atmosphere in the room or something else I could not tell. The smoke was making me feel light-headed, so I got up to open the window. Holmes had a particularly unpleasant habit of creating a before-breakfast pipe from the plugs and dottles of every other he had smoked the day before, and which he lined up on the mantelpiece to dry. The result was truly remarkable and not at all conducive to a clear head first thing.

Silence reigned in the sitting room as I attacked my breakfast and Holmes continued his daily dissection of the agony columns. Sheets of newspaper littered the floor and hung over the back of the settee, which itself appeared to be piled high with books on Ancient Egypt. I could see that Holmes had already been clipping interesting articles from the papers for his scrapbooks, as many of the pages had large holes in them.

"Mrs Hudson will have a fit when she sees this," I told my friend, who barked a laugh from behind his paper.

"She has already read me a lecture upon the subject. I did remind her that I had not asked her to tidy the room, but that seemed not to placate her."

"I'm not surprised! The poor woman knows that whether you ask or not she will be the one clearing up behind you. She knows you of old, Holmes."

"Nonsense. Mrs Hudson is out of temper because the delivery boy brought the wrong groceries, her sister's cat is missing again and the fire in the downstairs parlour refuses to draw. It has very little to do with me," Holmes said airily, at last lowering the newspaper and laying it aside. He reached for his coffee and took a sip, pulling a face at its temperature. It was only then that he became aware of my scrutiny, and raised a querying eyebrow.

"You do not look well, Holmes," I said, and in truth he did not. He was always pale, as his deplorable habits would never give him a healthy complexion, but this morning his face seemed drained of anything approaching colour. There were dark circles under his heavy-lidded eyes, and I could see even through the fabric of his dressing gown that his spare frame was looking almost emaciated.

He shook his head, holding up a hand in denial, but it appeared that his body had at last had enough of such cavalier treatment as he fell to coughing almost upon cue. His thin hand clutched convulsively at his chest, as though the fit caused him some considerable pain. I passed him a handkerchief and a glass of water, resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder as the fit subsided.

"You can't go on like this," I told him, pulling out the chair next to his and sitting down so that I could regard him properly. His eyes as he turned them on me were watering from the exertion of the coughing fit.

"Then what do you suggest?" he asked hoarsely.

"The very things you have been denying yourself: rest, warmth, food. And you will allow me to make a proper examination - "

He groaned theatrically.

" – so that we may determine how serious your condition really is. Holmes," I added as he shook his head once more and flapped a hand weakly at me, "if we do not, there is a strong possibility that you will drive yourself to a complete nervous collapse. If that occurs, you may never work again. Are you listening to me?"

He stared at me, eyes wide and brows raised at the severity of my pronouncement. "Never - ?"

I nodded. "Now do you see the reason for my concern?"

Holmes opened his mouth to reply, but before he could speak a hammering started up on the front door, making us both jump. He glanced at the clock. "Ah, that will be our client, considerably ahead of his time."

"Holmes - " I began as he rose from the table with an effort and hurriedly began stuffing newspapers onto the shelves and behind chairs.

"Later, Watson, later," came the reply, and with a sigh I fell to helping him, inwardly cursing our visitor's timing.

Thankfully, by the time Mrs Hudson showed James Ravensley, Viscount Amsworth, into the sitting room it looked more or less tidy, though I caught our landlady's gimlet gaze on the stack of newspapers hidden on a chair. I pushed the offending piece of furniture under the table just as Holmes emerged from his bedroom, shaking out the folds of his hastily-donned coat.

"Lord Amsworth to see you, sir," Mrs Hudson announced, giving Holmes a pointed look which he ignored.

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson. You are early, my lord," Holmes remarked once she had departed and shut the door.

"I do apologise, Mr Holmes, for bursting in upon you in this manner, and at such an hour, but the truth is that I am at my wits' end," said the young man earnestly.

Holmes indicated the sofa and waved a hand in my direction. "My friend and colleague, Doctor Watson. Do sit down and tell me how I may assist you."

Lord James perched on the edge of the settee, his hands clenching and unclenching repeatedly, his eyes darting about the room. He must be no more than three- or four-and-twenty I guessed, small and slight of stature and fashionably dressed, his dark hair glossy and neatly brushed. He had, however, the aspect of a hunted man.

"I have come to you, Mr Holmes," he said, his voice tight with what I realised with surprise was fear, "because I am convinced that by the week's end I will be dead."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to those who reviewed - feedback is always much appreciated! **

**Author's Note: This fic contains elements from the 1975 **_**Doctor Who**_** story _Pyramids of Mars_. The characterisations of Holmes and Watson are based on the performances of Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada series. This story takes place ostensibly between _The Sign of Four_ and _The Devil's Foot_ in the Granada run.**

**Author's Second Note: When I started writing this I realised that I had in fact made a mistake with the chronology and forgotten that in the Granadaverse _The Devil's Foot_ occurs before Watson's second meeting with Mycroft in _The Bruce Partington Plans_. However, as the subplot wouldn't work if I set it at any other time I'm pretending it takes place in a parallel universe where the stories occur the other way round. :)**

**Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do not belong to me. _Doctor Who_ elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER TWO

"Dead?"

Holmes stared at our visitor for a moment in astonishment before the expression swiftly became a gratified smile. "This is most unusual. Pray, tell me how you can be so sure – have you - forgive me - some kind of terminal disease, perhaps?"

The young man shook his head. "No, Mr Holmes, nothing like that."

"A premonition?" I ventured.

"Something of the sort, Doctor. You will perhaps have heard of the Egyptian artefact that my father is attempting to sell?"

"The one that has so high a price tag only Her Majesty would be able to afford to buy it?" Holmes nodded. "I have seen something of it."

"The sale is taking place at my request, though my father does not take my worries seriously and is therefore making little attempt to truly be rid of the thing," Amsworth said bitterly. "It has been in the family since my great-great grandfather brought it back from the French invasion of Egypt in the late 1790s. It was given to him by Napoleon Bonaparte."

"Then why should you wish to be rid of such a valuable heirloom?" I enquired. "Such objects are usually highly prized by their owners."

Amsworth turned to look at me, and there was such terror etched into the youthful lines of his face that I was momentarily taken aback. I had rarely seen anyone look so scared before. "And so this one is, Doctor Watson, by every member of my family but myself. I am the eldest, you see, and so the curse will affect me, and me alone."

Holmes blinked. "I'm sorry – curse?" he repeated sharply, sitting forward in his chair.

"Since the statue has belonged to our family, the eldest child of the house has always died shortly before their twenty-fifth birthday. At first nothing sinister was thought of it - when my great-grandfather's sister died after falling down the stairs it was put down to a tragic accident. But then later my great-uncle was drowned when the ship he was taking to America went down, and my own uncle died in the Crimea, only a month before his coming of age," said Amsworth, bowing his head and staring at his clasped hands.

"Surely," I said, "men are killed in battle all the time. Such a death would not indicate that some…malevolent presence is at work."

"Bravo, Watson," murmured Holmes.

"He did not die in battle, Doctor," Amsworth said. "He was trampled to death one night when the cavalry horses broke loose. Normally, of course, the eldest son would not have been permitted to join the army, but he was determined and defied the family by joining up as a private soldier."

I looked at Holmes over the young man's head. To my dismay, my friend's eyes were alight with interest.

"And what makes you think that you will shortly suffer such an accident yourself?" he asked.

Amsworth looked up, fixing him with a wild stare. "It is my twenty-fifth birthday on Saturday. The curse is upon me, Mr Holmes, and I know that I will be dead by then. Death is at my heels!"

"Really, Lord James, I have enough to contend with hunting out mortal criminals. I doubt if I will have much success with the one man none of us can avoid."

I opened my mouth to chide Holmes for using such levity in the face of a man clearly distressed and probably suffering from some kind of nervous distraction, but before I could Amsworth was on his feet and crossing to the window.

"There!" he said, pointing to something below in the street, "See him, there! Every day for the past week he has been behind me, whatever the hour. I cannot shake him off."

Holmes looked out in the direction of the young man's quivering finger, after a moment relinquishing his place to me. I wondered exactly what I should see, and was a little disappointed to spot a man of vaguely Middle-Eastern appearance, tall and immaculately dressed, leaning upon a lamp-post a little further up the street. He was smoking a cigarillo, and occasionally glanced up at our window.

"Hardly the aspect one would imagine the Grim Reaper to take," Holmes muttered as I turned back into the room. He paced the hearthrug for a moment, one finger to his lips, before rounding on Amsworth, who had sunk dejectedly back onto the settee. "When did you first become aware of this man following you?" he demanded.

"A week last Monday," the young man replied, a little startled by the brusque tone.

"And when did it become common knowledge that your father was attempting to sell this artefact?"

"At around the same time." As Amsworth spoke he looked somewhat surprised, as though the connection had not occurred to him.

"The exact nature of the item?" Holmes snapped his fingers in my direction, indicating that he wished me to make an exact record of the particulars. I readied my notebook.

"It is a wooden statue, about ten inches high and somewhat crudely painted. The representation is of the god Seth, the figure of a man with the head of a creature it seems no one can identify but bears some resemblance to a jackal. There is a similar statue in the British Museum which represents Horus, the enemy of Seth. They have long been interested in possessing the pair."

"Seth…also known as Set, or Sutek. Lord of Chaos. Interesting…" Holmes mused. "Very well, my lord, I shall accept your case. I think that I can be fairly confident of concluding matters without the need to battle with ancient Egyptian gods."

Amsworth's surprised expression remained. "So you believe me?"

"I do not necessarily believe that you are under a curse, but I do think that I can be of assistance to you. It will be necessary for me to conduct some enquiries, and I shall be in touch before Saturday. In the meantime I would suggest that you do not go out alone."

Relief flooded the young man's face, and he practically leapt from the sofa to grasp Holmes's hand, pumping it up and down with enthusiasm, much to my friend's consternation. "Thank you, Mr Holmes! You have no idea what a strain it has been, bearing this terrible fear alone, for none of my family would take it seriously. I am so incredibly grateful to you, sir!"

Holmes withdrew his hand with no little effort, and favoured the viscount with one of his swift smiles. "Do not thank me yet, my lord. Save that for a successful conclusion."

I saw Amsworth to the door, where he shook my hand with almost as much vigour. I sincerely hoped that his irrational fear of curses and death could be successfully allayed by Holmes, but in my view the case could not have come at a worse time.

When I returned to the sitting room Holmes was banging drawers and doors about in his bedroom. A few moments later he emerged dressed in an old ragged jacket and trousers, a cloth cap pulled low on his head and a grimy muffler wound round his neck, half obscuring his face.

"Ah, Watson. I'm going out, and I may be some time," he announced when he saw me.

"Holmes, your health – you are not well enough to go gallivanting all over town!" I protested.

He successfully smothered the cough that appeared right on cue. "Your patients will be waiting for you," he pointed out, and headed for the stairs. "I'll see you later."

I watched him go, torn between wanting to drag him back into the room by the scruff of the neck, and offering my services in case he needed help. Would he never listen to me?

My surgery kept me busy for the rest of the day, thankfully with patients who took my advice far more readily than Sherlock Holmes.

By the time I ventured outside to find a cab it was dark, and the rain which had been falling since mid afternoon had become a deluge. I was forced to walk for nearly half a mile before I found a hansom that had not been taken by someone younger and quicker than me. When I at last reached the sanctuary of Baker Street I was soaked to the skin, and my old wound was aching as it always does in damp weather. I was quite ready for my dinner, and looking forward to a whisky and soda to follow and accompany my cigar.

As I fumbled in my pocket for the key, the front door opened to reveal Mrs Hudson, who instantly bundled me over the threshold, appalled at my sodden appearance.

"I saw you coming down the street, sir," she said, helping me out of my overcoat and shoes. "You'll catch your death of cold!"

"Has Mr Holmes returned?" I asked as she expertly divested me of my jacket as well, and handed me a large towel.

"He has, sir, an hour since, and I don't like the look of him, indeed I don't."

That was not what I had hoped to hear, though I had in truth expected it. "I had better go and see him."

"You'll have a hot bath first, and change out of those wet things," ordered Mrs Hudson, "We don't need you catching a chill too, sir!"

"No, indeed not," I agreed, knowing that Holmes's ailment was something far more than just a chill. I padded up the seventeen stairs to the landing – all the doors were shut, but my hand hovered over the sitting room handle before Mrs Hudson's command and the chaffing of my wet clothes won out and I continued up the stairs to my own room.

Half an hour later, warmed and comfortable, I descended once more and entered the sitting room with more than a little apprehension as to what I would find. The blinds were drawn against the inclement evening, and the fire burned merrily in the grate, the blaze rendering the room somewhat stuffy and close. The gas was only half turned on, and in the dim light I could see Holmes hunched in his armchair, wrapped in an afghan and looking thoroughly sorry for himself.

"Well, I warned you, did I not?" I said loudly as I shut the door behind me.

"Please do not say 'I told you so', Watson. Smugness does not become you," came the response from the huddled figure in the chair.

I couldn't help laughing at that. "It would serve you right if I did," I told him. "Where the devil have you been all day?"

"Following the man who has been shadowing Amsworth. It has been a most interesting few hours."

"And dangerous." I sat down slowly on the opposite side of the hearth, watching him as he tried to inch closer to the fire. He was obviously cold, but the heat in the room was rapidly becoming uncomfortable – I scrutinised his face and saw with concern the tell-tale flush across his cheekbones, the unnatural brightness in his eye.

"There was no danger. He had no notion I was on his tail. This man is a queer fellow, Watson – a fanatic, apparently devoted to those old Egyptian deities that to most have been lost in the mists of time. He rambles, talks to himself as though there were another person present, argues with that person quite violently."

"A lunatic, then."

"I am not sure of that. He waited for some time at the Harcourt residence in Grosvenor Square, and only left when it became clear that Amsworth was not going to venture out again today. I followed him halfway round London before he eventually turned up Great Russell Street and entered the British Museum." Holmes coughed, trying to hide the action behind his hand, but the spasm shook his frame and he could not hide the grimace of pain it brought to his face. I allowed him to continue his story, but went to fetch my medical bag from the hall. "He spent two hours in the Egyptian galleries, just staring at the artefacts. His interest appears to be primarily in the statue of Horus Amsworth mentioned. I spoke to the attendant on duty – apparently the man's name is Ibrahim Namin, and he is well-known to the museum staff. He has been expelled more than once for causing a disturbance."

"And still they allow him back? What kind of disturbance does he make?"

"Fanatical ranting, declaring that he is a servant of the dark lord Seth, or Sutek, proclaiming that he will return the god of Chaos to the earth where he will reign supreme. The police have been called on more than one occasion, and he has been charged with disturbing the peace, but somehow he finds his way back inside."

"Then surely it should be for the police to deal with him," I said as I found the thermometer in my bag.

"Quite so. I intend to speak to Gregson or Lestrade about him. But there is something deeply odd about the man, Watson." Holmes frowned, apparently unaware of my movements. "When he left the museum it had begun to rain heavily – he ducked into a church, to shelter, so I assumed, but that was not the case. He made straight for the organ, and to my surprise seated himself before the keys and proceeded to play with such fervour that I am convinced I saw the rafters tremble from the vibrations. The noise was incredible." He shook his head, evidently still baffled by the occurrence. "The verger quite naturally came running to demand exactly what Namin thought he was doing, creating such a disturbance in a house of God. Namin took no notice, as far as I could ascertain in some kind of ecstatic trance. He played on – the music, if one can call it that, built to a crescendo, and as it did so from above came the most deafening thunderclap I have ever heard in my life, Watson. It sounded like the very wrath of God itself."

"A coincidence."

"Of course. But it was enough to disorientate me for a moment, and when I recovered Namin had gone."

"And so you walked back here in the pouring rain when your health is already weak. I despair, Holmes," I said, and he looked at me a little sheepishly.

"I had to take the opportunity when it presented itself."

"I only hope that you have not done more damage. You will be lucky not to go down with pneumonia if you do not take more care." It was evidence that he was not feeling himself when he allowed me to slip the thermometer under his tongue. He held it there in the manner of a man with an intense desire for a cigarette. "You have a temperature of ninety-nine," I told him, "and you appear to have caught a bad chill, on top of everything else. I suggest that you go to bed and stay there until I say otherwise."

"You have become a terrible bully of late, Watson. Do you treat all your patients in this manner?"

"Only when they do as you have, and take no notice of my advice."

He snorted. "That is arrant nonsense. I always listen to your advice, I just do not necessarily agree with it. However - " He held up a hand to prevent my interrupting " – on this occasion I will do as I am told, and am therefore taking myself off to my room."

"To rest, I hope."

"Of course. I am obeying the orders of my physician." He stood unaided, but it was obvious to me that it was likely he would fall down again at any moment and so I offered my support. This he accepted with a grimace, and with my help he stumbled to his bedroom, cursing his own weakness in the strongest terms.

I settled him in the bed and made sure he had all he wanted, firmly denying his request for his pipe and the tobacco slipper. He glared at me, but there was little venom in it. When I emerged, I found that Mrs Hudson was laying the table for dinner.

"How is he, Doctor?" she asked, casting a concerned glance at the half-closed bedroom door.

"He has been pushing himself too hard," I replied, reluctant to pass my worries on to her.

"He's lucky he has you. If you weren't here I shudder to think what might have happened to him by now." Much as she might deplore some of his habits – and Holmes would try the very patience of a saint with his chemistry experiments and indoor target practise – Mrs Hudson was fond of him, rather as a mother might be fond of a naughty schoolboy. "Get him well, Doctor, please. I'd much rather have him bellowing down the stairs than ringing the bell – though don't you dare tell him that," she added hastily.

I smiled. "I shan't breathe a word, Mrs Hudson, I promise."

She departed, leaving me to my rather lonely repast. Once or twice I heard Holmes coughing – I went to check on him to find that, though his temperature had not risen he was still very hot and flushed. With a sigh I resigned myself to a sleepless night, and went to fetch a cloth and a basin of cool water.

I confess that it was not until the sunlight was streaming through a gap in Holmes's bedroom curtains that I realised I had fallen asleep after all. Morning had come without my noticing, and I had a painful crick in my neck as thanks for my efforts through the night. I removed the compress and laid my hand on Holmes's forehead, relieved to find it much cooler than it had been a few hours before. He was sleeping soundly at last, and I took the opportunity to slip upstairs and tidy myself up a little.

Mrs Hudson must have heard me stirring, as when I returned to the sitting room she had laid breakfast and there was a telegram sitting on Holmes's plate. I glanced at it as I helped myself to bacon and eggs – the envelope had URGENT stamped in the left-hand corner. The door to the bedroom was closed, and I hoped that Holmes was still asleep. I did not want to bother him with work just at that moment.

However, if something was marked URGENT then there must be good reason for it…

I battled with my conscience for some moments before I reached for the envelope and tore it open. The telegram was from Holmes's brother, Mycroft, which was somewhat unusual. But what made me drop my fork onto my plate in horror was the wording of the message itself:

AMSWORTH DEAD. STOP. STATUE STOLEN. STOP.

POTENTIAL INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT. STOP.

COMING AT ONCE. STOP.

M.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you again to those who left such lovely reviews - they are very much appreciated!**

**Author's Note: This fic contains elements from the 1975 **_**Doctor Who**_** story _Pyramids of Mars_. The characterisations of Holmes and Watson are based on the performances of Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada series. This story takes place ostensibly between _The Sign of Four_ and _The Devil's Foot_ in the Granada run.**

**Author's Second Note: When I started writing this I realised that I had in fact made a mistake with the chronology and forgotten that in the Granadaverse _The Devil's Foot_ occurs before Watson's second meeting with Mycroft in _The Bruce Partington Plans_. However, as the subplot wouldn't work if I set it at any other time I'm pretending it takes place in a parallel universe where the stories occur the other way round. :)**

**Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do not belong to me. _Doctor Who_ elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER THREE

I stared at the telegram.

Amsworth…dead. So the poor lad had been right all along. Another victim of the Harcourt curse. But what could this possibly have to do with Mycroft Holmes? It must be something of monumental importance to bring him here – only twice before had he visited our rooms, and Holmes had treated the visits in the same vein as one would view the descent of one of the gods from Olympus. Mycroft was not famed for his energy, and only ever seemed to communicate with his brother when there was a crime involved.

I debated whether to wake Holmes. This was certainly vital, but the poor fellow was at last getting the rest he so sorely needed and I was loath to disturb him. I was still dithering over the decision when an incredible knocking started up from below. For the second day in a row breakfast was disturbed by someone pounding upon our front door, and this time the visitor seemed determined to break it down!

Abandoning the table, I went swiftly to the window, but could see nothing more than a fairly innocuous four-wheeler outside the house. A moment later I could hear a conversation in the hall, followed by the heavy tread of someone who evidently found climbing our seventeen stairs something of a trial. Before the door was opened I had already guessed that it would reveal the huge figure of Mycroft Holmes, breathing heavily from his unaccustomed exertion.

"Ah, you had my telegram," he gasped, producing a Paisley handkerchief with which he strenuously mopped his brow. His watery grey eyes scanned the room. "I was informed that my brother is at home. Where is he?"

"Mrs Hudson did not inform you that Holmes is ill?" I asked, surprised.

"The good woman did not have a chance. I regret the intrusion, but if you have read the telegram you will know that I have something of the gravest importance to lay before Sherlock."

"And I regret that I must refuse," I said firmly, my mind at last made up. "Your brother has been extremely unwell. Excitement is the last thing his nerves need at a time like this!"

Mycroft stared at me coldly. "I am sure that you have Sherlock's best interests at heart, Doctor, but this could be vital!"

"And so is your brother's health!" I countered.

"Thank you for your concern, Watson, but I do feel a little better this morning," a familiar voice said, breaking into what was fast becoming an argument. I turned to see that Holmes's bedroom door was open, and he was leaning upon the frame, wrapped in his mouse-coloured dressing gown. His gaunt and haggard appearance belied his words, however, and he coughed again. "Good morning, Mycroft."

Even Mycroft started in alarm at the sight of his brother. "My dear Sherlock! What on earth have you been doing to yourself?" he demanded.

"A strenuous case, far too long spent abroad in these unseasonable conditions. Watson has chastised me repeatedly for my foolishness so you may save yourself the bother." Holmes favoured us with a rather wan smile. "But something cataclysmic must have happened," he observed, "or you would not be here, and certainly would not have ascended the stairs in such a hurry."

I moved to my friend's side and took his arm. "Come and sit down, Holmes. You should not have left your bed."

He waved my concerns aside, reluctantly allowing me to help him to an armchair. Once he stumbled, and Mycroft, moving faster than I had ever seen him, swiftly caught his brother's arm to steady him. Between us we settled him into a chair beside the fire, and I fetched a blanket. As I draped it around his shoulders I said quietly into his ear, "Lord Amsworth is dead."

He looked at me, shock flaring in his eyes for a moment before he said, "Mycroft, will you not introduce Watson and myself to your companion?"

"Of course. Sherlock, Doctor, you may have already surmised that this is the Honourable William Ravensley, younger son of the earl of Harcourt," Mycroft announced. "Sit down, Ravensley. We all need to draw near the fire in this damnable weather." He sat down heavily in my armchair, reaching inside his coat for the snuffbox I have never seen him without.

For the first time, I realised that a young man was standing by the closed sitting room door. As small and lean as his brother, and bearing a marked resemblance to that unfortunate gentleman, he had been completely hidden by Mycroft's bulk. His face was pale, no doubt from shock, and he wore a sober black suit.

"Please accept our condolences, Mr Ravensley," Holmes said, with that remarkable gentleness that could be his when he chose to exercise it. "I do not doubt that the loss must have come as a great shock to you."

The young man nodded as he took a seat on the sofa, in the exact same spot in which his brother had been sitting twenty-four hours previously. "Thank you, Mr Holmes. It has indeed stunned us all. Jamie was constantly talking about death coming to him, but we all believed he was merely being fanciful – he always did have an active imagination."

"He certainly did seem very distracted yesterday," I said.

"When he returned from visiting Mr Holmes he was far more relaxed, and even cheerful. He was convinced that you would solve the problem for him, sir."

Holmes nodded. "I am sorry I was not able to assist him in time. And what is your connection with this matter, brother mine?" he asked, turning to Mycroft. "It must be an emergency indeed to shake you from your usual routine."

Mycroft inhaled a large pinch of snuff and dusted the remains away with his handkerchief. "The earl of Harcourt is a member of the Diogenes, and is never backward in calling in a favour," he said. "Young Ravensley was dispatched to me shortly after the police arrived to take charge of the scene in Grosvenor Square, almost at the exact moment as a telegram arrived from the foreign office on the same subject. We came here as quickly as possible."

"Quite, but why?"

"Put simply - "

"Put simply, Mr Holmes, not only is my brother dead but the statue of Seth has been stolen!" Ravensley exclaimed.

"Stolen? Good God!" I exchanged a glance with Holmes, and could tell that he must be thinking the same as me, that there was one man who had been seen acting suspiciously only the day before: Ibrahim Namin.

"Tell me exactly what happened," Holmes said, "Leave nothing out."

"Take your time and tell them what you told me," Mycroft said to Ravensley in a slightly softer tone. The boy nodded and swallowed hard.

"There appeared to be nothing wrong when we went to bed last night," he began, "in fact, as I said just now, Jamie was in better spirits than I had seen him for some time. He spoke of going down to Hampshire for a few days and seeing to some of the preparations for the wedding – he was to be married in a few months' time, you see. All was normal – none of us could have suspected that such a thing could happen."

"Exactly who is present in the house?" Holmes asked.

"My parents, my younger brother Charles and my sister Lucy. And myself, of course."

"No other relatives? No aunts, uncles, cousins?"

"Only my father's widowed sister, Lady Amelia – she never leaves town, and has a permanent residence in the east wing. My brother's fiancée, Lady Amanda Barrington, is staying with her while her parents are abroad. And naturally there was Jamie…"

"At what time did you retire?"

"A little after eleven. We had been playing cards after dinner."

"And when did the robbery occur?"

The young man thought for a few moments. "Between midnight and five o'clock this morning. The servants go to bed at twelve, and the housemaid was clearing the grates when she discovered the…body…" His voice cracked and he leaned forwards, his head in his hands.

"You heard nothing in the night?" Holmes asked. "None of you?"

Ravensley shook his head, but did not answer.

"Lord Amsworth was discovered lying on the study floor by the second housemaid," said Mycroft quietly. "It was thought that he heard some kind of disturbance in the night and went to investigate – he was wearing his nightclothes and a loaded revolver was found at his side, its chambers undischarged."

"How did he meet his end?" I enquired, as softly as possible so as not to cause the poor young man who sat on the sofa further distress.

Mycroft shrugged his huge shoulders, giving the effect of a mountain range suffering an earthquake. "That is what the police have so far failed to ascertain. There was no mark of violence upon the body, and we will not know until the post mortem is completed if poison was involved, or whether it was simply a case of heat failure."

"But surely this was a healthy young man!" I objected. "He had an underlying heart condition, perhaps?"

"None that the family or their physician were aware of. I am told that Amsworth's face was contorted, almost as if he had died from pure fright."

"That is ridiculous. Healthy people cannot be frightened to death."

"You would be surprised, Watson," said Holmes. "We must wait for the results of the post mortem, then, but I would not expect the pathologist to find any trace of poison – at least none known to European science."

"I have considered the possibility of some Eastern or African substance. Especially as…" Mycroft coughed and did not complete the sentence.

"Especially as some foreign agency may be involved," his brother finished for him.

"I said nothing of the kind, Sherlock!" Mycroft protested.

"You did not have to. Why else would you have rushed straight here rather than summoning me to Pall Mall?" Holmes glanced at William Ravensley and a fleeting expression of concern touched his haggard face. "Watson, I think a glass of brandy would be beneficial."

"Of course." I moved to the sideboard and poured two stiff brandies. One I handed to the bereaved young man, who accepted it gratefully. The other I gave to Holmes.

"For medicinal purposes?" he enquired, raising an eyebrow.

"Naturally," I replied. "You are not well enough for this."

Mycroft had been regarding his brother with narrowed eyes. "Doctor Watson is right, Sherlock. Had I known of your illness I would never have brought the case to you."

"And where else would you have taken it? Exactly," Holmes added, seeing Mycroft's expression. "Besides, the dead man was my client. Now, tell me exactly how you come to be involved – I take it that the Egyptian government are somehow connected with this?"

Mycroft nodded. "The new ambassador – a peculiar little fellow – has been vociferously demanding the return of the statue, claiming it to be stolen property, if you please. Now Harcourt is blaming the Egyptians for the theft of last night. He was vocal on the subject to the police, and his words were fed back to the foreign office, which has been buzzing like an overturned beehive since early this morning. If Harcourt cannot be persuaded to withdraw the accusation then there may be a diplomatic incident. The foreign secretary begged me to ask that you do your best to solve this mystery."

"Then it is indeed important. And I shall of course do so."

"Holmes - " I began in a warning tone.

He waved a hand at me. "Not now, Watson. I must have more detail. Have you photographs of the statue?" he asked Ravensley.

"No, but the British Museum took several quite some time ago, when my grandfather considered giving the figure to them," the young man replied.

"Excellent, then I shall apply there." Holmes sat forward in his chair, one finger raised to his lips in his habitual posture when rapidly considering facts. "I think that we can be with you in Grosvenor Square by twelve. Who has Scotland Yard placed in charge of the case?"

"Inspector Lestrade."

"Ah." My friend nodded and smiled slightly. "You had better return to your home – no doubt your family have need of you. We will call on you there shortly."

"Thank you, Mr Holmes." Ravensley rose, and after shaking hands with us all, made his way down the stairs to the front door. Mycroft lingered, watching his brother carefully as Sherlock climbed unsteadily to his feet and tottered across to the door.

"Mrs Hudson!" he bellowed down the landing, "I need to send some telegrams!" Immediately following this outburst, he descended into a violent fit of coughing that alarmed me and sent Mycroft to the sideboard for a glass of water.

"Holmes, I forbid you to leave the house," I said as he sank heavily onto the sofa. I pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders as his brother handed him the water.

"Don't….don't be ridiculous, Watson," he gasped, trying to regain his breath.

"I am not being ridiculous!" I countered. "I doubt if you could even manage to walk down the stairs, let alone reach the front door!"

Mrs Hudson appeared at that moment. "Goodness, Mr Holmes, you look dreadful!" she exclaimed.

Holmes glared at us all. "If you do not cease fussing this instant, I shall order you all out of the room and lock the door," he threatened. "Watson, your notebook, if you please."

Reluctantly, I handed the book and pencil over. Holmes scribbled two short notes and gave them to Mrs Hudson to take to the telegraph office. It was clear that, despite his weakness, nothing would dissuade him from visiting the scene of the crime. Experience had taught me that arguing with him was useless – his was such a forceful personality that it flattened all resistance. Mrs Hudson did not dare disobey him, and truth be told, in his more masterful moments neither did I.

"Now," he said with some dignity," if you will excuse me, I shall go and dress. We have much to do." With what was no doubt a superhuman effort, he stood, and walked quite steadily to his bedroom, closing the door pointedly behind him.

Mycroft shook his head. "He never would listen to anyone," he remarked.

"I seem to have failed once again," I said, disappointed.

"Not your fault, Doctor. You did your best. I am afraid that stubbornness is a failing in our family. But I would be grateful if you would keep a close watch on him – I feel that there is more here than meets the eye." As he spoke, Mycroft glanced across the room, in the direction of Holmes's desk, and a seed of suspicion was planted in my mind.

"I will do what I can," I promised, "but as you have seen, I have little influence."

"I believe you may have more success than you think, Doctor." Mycroft clapped a huge hand on my shoulder, causing me to stagger. "After all this time, I have no doubt that you know my brother better than anyone."

With those words he departed, leaving me alone in the sitting room, thoughts whirling through my head. Intentionally or not, that seed had been sown in my mind, and it was producing shoots. Glancing at Holmes's door to check that it was still firmly closed, I crossed to the window and his desk. It seemed illness had made him careless, as the drawer that I knew held his syringe was unlocked. There, beside my chequebook and the photograph of Irene Adler, was the morocco case, the sight of which never failed to fill me with revulsion. I had not seen him use it for quite some time, but the suspicion that he had not renounced the drug, merely become more secretive about its use given my objections, had remained in the back of my mind.

I opened the case, and withdrew the needle. Some of the solution lingered in the syringe, positive proof that it had been used, and recently. The pieces finally slotted into place, pieces that I had overlooked while concentrating on the symptoms rather than the cause of the problem.

But what could I alone do to prevent my friend from destroying himself?


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: This fic contains elements from the 1975 **_**Doctor Who**_** story _Pyramids of Mars_. The characterisations of Holmes and Watson are based on the performances of Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada series. This story takes place ostensibly between _The Sign of Four_ and _The Devil's Foot_ in the Granada run.**

**Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do not belong to me. _Doctor Who_ elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER FOUR

It was with a heavy heart and an uncomfortable feeling of foreboding that I followed Holmes down to the hansom summoned by Mrs Hudson. He was bundled up against the cold in overcoat, thick scarf and homburg, the blanket still pulled around his shoulders. His whole aspect was unapproachable, and my immediate impression was that he resembled nothing so much as a great black crow.

"Where are we going?" I enquired, attempting to sound casual. I tried to tuck one of the rugs I had brought down over his legs, but he swatted my hand away in annoyance.

"Watson, please leave me be!" he snapped. "You are not my doctor!"

"That is exactly what I am, whether you like it or not," I retorted, stung. "And I am also your friend, a friend who wishes it to be known that he believes your taking of this case in your present condition to be foolhardy in the extreme."

"I am not a child, nor do I wish to be treated like one, by either you or Mycroft!" Holmes rapped on the roof of the cab with his stick. "The British Museum, Russell Street entrance!" he commanded.

Silence reigned as we rattled down Oxford Street. Holmes was quite evidently not inclined towards conversation, and, to be perfectly honest, neither was I. My mind was still buzzing from the sight of the needle and its implications. For almost as long as I had known him Holmes had used a seven percent solution of cocaine as a method of stimulating his mind and distracting his formidable intellect from the stagnation it often suffered when there was no case to exercise it. I deplored this, as any medical man should, and made my objections known on many occasions. He had noted them, and politely ignored them – I had not felt that I could do more to make him see the danger of his actions without appearing to intrude into matters that were really none of my business. Holmes, as he had forcibly reminded me a few minutes earlier, was not a child, and unless he came to me for help I was powerless.

I had, naively it would seem, assumed that with a continual stream of clients since his return to London three years before he would have no more need of the drug, but it was now obvious that I had been entirely wrong. He had even taken the needle with him on our visit to Reginald Musgrave, a fact that had only just popped into my memory – I was appalled at the time, but the unfortunate death of Brunton, Musgrave's ambitious butler, had removed any opportunity for confrontation on the subject, and subsequent events had pushed the matter to the back of my mind.

"Thank you, George." I started at the sound of Holmes's voice – we had arrived, and he was already out of the cab as I scrambled to follow.

"What are we doing here?" I asked, catching up as he ascended the great steps that led to the museum's main entrance. It was a huge building, and I felt quite dwarfed by the mighty columns as we passed beneath the architrave into the huge, echoing hall beyond.

"To view the photographs of this statue," came the clipped reply. "My friend Bretherton will be expecting us."

"You wired him earlier?"

"Precisely. Do keep up, Watson. We have a busy morning ahead of us."

I recalled that, long before we had taken our rooms in together, Holmes had lived in Montague Street, just round the corner from the British Museum, and had spent much of his time within the walls of that great institution. It was doubtful in my mind, however, that he had ever frequented the Egyptian galleries – his rather haphazard general knowledge did not often extend to history, and when it did the activities of criminals past were more likely to gain his interest than those of dead civilisations.

I trailed behind him, up the magnificent staircase which was flanked on both sides by marble lions, snatching glimpses of fascinating exhibits in the rooms we passed. Holmes's iron self-control had come to the fore, and after the morning's display of weakness he was climbing the stairs with very little effort, his stick tapping on the marble.

"Holmes!"

At the sound of the voice I looked up at see a man of perhaps my own age, with a pointed beard and a genial expression descending swiftly to meet us. He shook my friend's hand warmly as he reached him.

"Such a pleasure to see you again, my dear fellow. I was rather distressed to have missed you over the business of the Etruscan fingers," he said, smiling. "The other curators were still discussing it when I returned two months later!"

"Ah, yes – you were abroad at the time, I believe," said Holmes, favouring the man with one of his own swift smiles.

"In Italy, looking at Roman remains, and hoping to acquire something for the museum."

"Were you successful?"

"On this occasion sadly no, which made the timing of the trip all the more galling!"

"Etruscan fingers?" I queried as I reached them, feeling more than a little bemused.

"Ah, Watson." Holmes glanced over his shoulder. "Bretherton, my friend and colleague, Doctor Watson."

"I had already guessed," said Bretherton, taking my hand and shaking it with what I took to be natural effusiveness. I had always imagined curators of museums to be rather dry fellows, spending their time poring over dusty artefacts, but evidently that was not the case. "I am Thomas Bretherton, curator of Roman Antiquities. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Doctor. Knowing Holmes as I do, I have always ensured that your stories are at the top of my required reading list."

"Thank you," I said, no clearer as to their discussion than before. "But – Etruscan fingers, Holmes?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Later, Watson. _Much_ later. You have the photographs, Bretherton?"

The curator tapped his breast pocket. "I do indeed. It will be easier if we examine them in the gallery, however, in conjunction with the statue's partner. It's not far – just off the next landing."

Holmes extended a hand in a wordless instruction to lead on, and Bretherton led us into a long room lined with glass cases. The objects on display ranged from ornately decorated sarcophagi, their painted features eerily blank as they gazed out at the visitors, to beautiful and exotic jewellery, its precious stones set in more gold than I had ever seen in a single piece before. I would have liked to stop and take a proper look at the collection, but time was of the essence and Holmes and Bretherton were already some twenty feet ahead of me. I hurried to catch them up, and found them in front of a case containing a variety of urns and bottles and what appeared to be a very small sarcophagus with the head of a cat instead of a man.

Pride of place in the cabinet had been given to a statue, about ten inches high and carved from wood, of a man with the head of a hawk or falcon, holding a staff in one hand and a strangely shaped key in the other.

"The statue of Horus," Bretherton was saying as I reached them, "It is almost identical in its carving to the Harcourt Seth. The general belief is that the statues were a pair, fashioned at the time when the two gods were worshipped as twin rulers of Egypt."

"Twin?" repeated Holmes, his head snapping round from his perusal of the cabinet's contents. "As I understood the myth, Horus and Seth were bitter enemies, fuelled by the latter's murder of Horus's father."

"That is one version of the story. Egyptian mythology is highly complicated, stretching as it does over so many thousands of years. And it isn't strictly my field," Bretherton added ruefully. "In later dynasties, I have been told, Horus and Seth were even worshipped as an amalgamated deity."

"I see." Holmes nodded, turning back to the case. "And the statue of Seth?"

Bretherton reached inside his coat and withdrew a manilla envelope which he handed to my friend. "I owe one of the Egyptology curators several drinks at the Alpha for this," he said. "By rights they should not have been removed from the files, as the earl of Harcourt forbade their use when he decided not to donate the statue."

"Why should he have done that?" I wondered.

"The late earl was a somewhat fickle man, Doctor. One could never rely on his whim being the same one day as the last."

Holmes took the envelope and removed several photographs, which he spread out on a conveniently prone case displaying a rich sarcophagus. We were fortunate in having the gallery to ourselves, the museum being quiet so early in the day. I looked at the images over his shoulder: the figure depicted in them was virtually identical to that of the Horus statue, except that the man had the head of an odd dog-like beast with large ears and a long snout. I could see why Amsworth would have been disquieted by the thing – even from a photograph I could appreciate its malevolent air.

"Horrible thing," I remarked.

Holmes grunted and rummaged in his pocket for paper and a pencil. No other comment was forthcoming, so, shrugging at Bretherton, I wandered away, down the line of display cases, idly glancing at the objects within. My attention had been caught by a beautifully decorated coffin lid, the female features exquisitely carved, when I heard someone enter the gallery. A man's voice, a voice which had a rather booming quality that immediately commanded attention, preceded him into the room.

"Of course this is where we'll find him, Sarah," he was saying, "If he's hiding anywhere, he couldn't do better than the British Museum. Look at all of this – enough to keep his greedy little eyes happy for hours."

"I can see that, but what makes you so sure what he's after is actually here?" a young woman – Sarah, presumably – asked.

"Well, nothing really, but it's not such a long shot, is it? We know he's in London, and – oh, hello."

Quite suddenly, there they were, reflected in the glass. I turned, and did my best not to stare, for the man was quite the strangest person I have ever seen. Taller even than Holmes, with a battered felt hat rammed on over unruly curls, he had wild eyes and a grin that was no doubt meant to be friendly but was really rather alarming. He wore what must have been the longest scarf in the world, which was looped twice around his neck and still dragged on the floor behind him. In contrast, the young lady at his side appeared to be rather normal, though her skirt was several inches shorter than propriety demanded and the heels of her boots were precariously high.

"Good morning," I said, taking a moment to recover my voice.

"A very good morning, especially now the rain has stopped. Rain in the morning does so spoil a day, I find. It's interesting here, isn't it? If death interests you, of course – personally, I find it all rather morbid. Don't you find it all rather morbid? Much better to concentrate on the living," the man said rapidly, leaving no chance for either myself or his companion to respond.

"Well, death comes to us all eventually," I pointed out when he paused for breath.

He fixed me with those eyes. "Does it? Yes, I suppose it does. Tell me, have you seen a man hanging around in here? About six feet tall, beard, probably wearing a fez?"

"He's Egyptian," the young woman added helpfully, "He'll probably be acting rather strangely."

I frowned, for the description sounded familiar. But why would they be looking for Ibrahim Namin? "I have not met the fellow myself, but I believe my friend saw him here yesterday. He is just over there." I pointed and the man jumped, peering over my shoulder.

"Where?" he asked, staring wildly around him.

"Not the man you are seeking – _my friend_ is over there," I said, as patiently as I could. "Should I ask him to join us?"

The man looked down the gallery behind me, and blinked in surprise. I glanced round to see that he was looking intently at the dark figure of Holmes, who had abandoned the photographs and was talking once more to Bretherton.

"Ah," the man said, and turned his unsettling gaze back to me. The toothy smile reappeared. "You know, I don't think we'll bother him. I'm sure you're both very busy men. We'll catch up with our Egyptian friend another time. Come on, Sarah."

He tipped his hat to me and whirled around, striding off towards the staircase. Sarah gave me an apologetic smile before chasing after him, her footsteps ringing on the floor. As she reached the door she cast a curious glance in the direction of Holmes, and then she was gone.

"Doctor," I heard her call when she was out of sight, "Was that who I think it was - ?"

"I believe we have done here, Watson," said Holmes suddenly from behind me. "Who was that man?"

"He was looking for Namin. An eccentric, obviously, but I think a harmless one." I turned to face him and noted that he was looking pale and strained, but this time I forbore to comment, knowing the reaction it would doubtless provoke. "Where to next?"

"Grosvenor Square. It is time we viewed the scene of the crime."

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Many thanks once again for those reviews! :)**

**Author's Note: This fic contains characters and elements from the 1975 **_**Doctor Who**_** story _Pyramids of Mars_. The characterisations of Holmes and Watson are based on the performances of Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada series. This story takes place ostensibly between _The Sign of Four_ and _The Devil's Foot_ in the Granada run.**

**Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do not belong to me. _Doctor Who_ elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER FIVE

It was almost a quarter past twelve when we at last reached Harcourt House.

Holmes climbed down from the cab slowly and carefully, his expression deterring me from offering my assistance. I paid the cabbie and followed him towards the large house on the west side of the vast square. The London home of the Ravensley family had been built from imposing white stone, its stuccoed frontage and classical columns marking it out as a product of the late eighteenth century. Two police constables stood on the steps, one either side of the black-painted front door.

As I reached the steps I realised that Holmes had lagged behind, and turned to see him standing on the pavement, leaning heavily upon his stick and staring up at the house. He walked up and down several times, occasionally stopping and leaning back, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the sun that had belatedly decided to reappear, looking up at the front windows. Finally he completed his observations and joined me on the steps.

"Inspector Lestrade is expecting us," I told the nearest of the constables. The man nodded and indicated that we were to go inside – the front door stood open, and men had been entering and leaving the house on one errand or another as we stood there. We found Lestrade in the marble-floored hall. As he caught sight of us he hurried over.

"You look like death, Mr Holmes," he said, "Have you caught this wretched influenza that's doing the rounds? I'm already two good men down because of it, and - "

Holmes waved the inspector's words aside impatiently. "I have been retained, by Mr William Ravensley and others, to look into the events of last night," he said.

"You're quite welcome. It's a pretty enough puzzle."

"Where was the body found?" Holmes asked sharply, his keen eyes taking in every detail of the entrance hall.

"The earl's study. Third door on the left down there," said Lestrade, pointing. "The body's been moved, of course. Professor Litefoot will have performed the autopsy by now."

Holmes stalked off towards the indicated door, only a slight unsteadiness in his step betraying his weakness. Lestrade turned to me with raised eyebrows. "Is he all right?" he asked in a low voice.

"He is suffering from exhaustion," I replied, seeing no reason tot lie to the inspector. "He should be resting."

"He looks like he needs it."

"He does indeed," I muttered as we trailed after Holmes, crossing the chessboard floor of the hall. A broad staircase led to the upper floors – portraits of Ravensleys past gazed impassively down at us from their lofty perches.

"The family are at luncheon, though I doubt if any of them can eat much," Lestrade told Holmes as he drew level with him in the study doorway.

"That is as well. I would rather conduct my investigations without causing them further distress. Is this where the body lay?" Holmes enquired, pointing to a spot on the carpet, not far from an impressive inlaid walnut desk. He put down his hat and stick, gazing intently about the study. It was a dark, typically masculine room, the walls decorated with sporting portraits and a large painting of a barely-clad woman above the mantelpiece that I recognised as one of the cod-medieval pieces by Burne Jones. The walls on either side of the marble fireplace were lined with well-stocked bookshelves. I also noticed a large globe in an alcove, and interestingly wrought piece in brass and steel.

"Just there," Lestrade confirmed. "Lying on his side, a .45 revolver, still loaded, about six inches from his hand. No sign of a struggle, or any violence, and yet he was very obviously dead."

Holmes pulled off his gloves and set them down beside his hat. "And at what time did the young man meet his end?"

Lestrade fumbled in his jacket pocket for his notebook and hurriedly flipped through the pages. "From the level of rigor mortis, initial estimate is between one and two o'clock this morning," he reported. "Of course, we'll know more when we get the results of the post mortem."

"So he had lain undiscovered for three hours at least, until the maid entered at five o'clock. Does the earl keep the door locked?"

"At all times. He's a very private man, and not even the children of the house are allowed in without his permission - with the exception of Lord James, that is. He has – had – a key, and so does the earl's valet, who supervises the maid as she cleans."

"But not on this occasion?"

"The maid had to clear the grates in the other rooms off the hall," said Lestrade. "She passed the study door and, noticing it was open, went to investigate."

"Finding James Ravensley dead on the floor and a valuable Egyptian artefact missing," I said.

"Indeed, Doctor. Though the criminals must either have been expert picklocks or magicians – come and look at this." Lestrade led the way to the alcove opposite that which held the globe. In it stood a tall mahogany display case, its panels set with double panes of thick glass and fastened with a variety of complex locks. Within the case, resting upon velvet cushions, lay a collection of items similar to those I had seen at the British Museum: Egyptian jewellery, fragments of hieroglyphs, and scraps of papyrus. There was a large gap in the centre of the case, the spot in which I presumed the statue of Seth had stood until that morning. What was curious, however, was that the locks all seemed still to be fastened. The only thing out of place besides the missing statue was a small round hole in the glass, through which it might just have been possible to pass the hand of a child. There was no other damage at all, and certainly nothing to suggest opportunist burglary to be the motive, for what kind of thief would remove a wooden figurine and leave valuable jewellery behind?

Holmes had produced his lens and was examining the cabinet. "Fingerprints?" he asked.

"None. Whoever is behind this came prepared," Lestrade replied. "I personally lean towards the theory that it was an inside job."

"How so?" I enquired.

"No sign of forced entry."

"The doors were all found to be locked on the inside this morning?" asked Holmes. When Lestrade nodded, he added, "And the windows as well? Yes, I could detect no sign of a break-in from the outside of the building. This was certainly well-planned and executed with exquisite precision." He swung round to survey the room at large, and then dropped to the floor, examining the expensive carpet through his lens. Lestrade and I watched him crawl around on the floor, his nose an inch from its surface, for all the world like a dog scenting a bone he had buried.

"This is most unusual," he remarked, after some minutes of silence during which we had observed him with interest.

"What is, Mr Holmes?" the inspector asked.

"Well," said Holmes, sitting back upon his heels, "Have you and your men examined the floor?"

"We have indeed, though we could determine little of use."

"Take a look at this, then." Holmes handed his lens to Lestrade. The inspector peered through it at a section of the carpet indicated by my friend – I stared over Lestrade's shoulder, and was surprised to see the faint outline of a footprint. A footprint belonging to a child without shoes. My immediate thought was of Tonga, Jonathan Small's savage little ally during the business with the Sign of Four not long ago.

"Good Lord!" Lestrade exclaimed. "That print can't have been there this morning. We would have seen it!"

Holmes patted his shoulder. "Don't be too hard on yourself, my dear fellow. I found it because I was looking for it."

"Whoever committed the burglary must have been barefoot," I mused. "Natural, I suppose, if one is to escape detection. It's rather more awkward to ask to examine a man's feet than it is to look at his shoes."

Holmes shot me a look that told me my levity was not appreciated just at that moment.

"But how did they get in?" Lestrade wondered.

"Evidently they had help from someone within the house, as you thought," I said, leaning back against the desk.

Holmes tapped his magnifying glass against his chin. I knew that thoughtful expression of old.

"You're not convinced?" I asked.

"I don't believe it to be that straightforward," he replied, getting to his feet. As he did, he turned to face the fireplace and froze, staring into the grate. "Now that is interesting."

"What is?" Lestrade peered in the direction of Holmes's gaze, frowning.

"The ash in the grate has been disturbed."

"The maid came in to clear the grate," I pointed out.

Holmes smiled slightly. "Indeed," was all he would say. He gathered up his hat and stick, and moved towards the door. "I think we have seen all we can here. I would like to speak to the servants."

"Of course," said Lestrade. "The maid is still understandably distraught."

"Treat her gently, Holmes," I warned as I followed them. On the way I peered into the fireplace myself, but could discern nothing that might have attracted my friend's attention.

The servants' hall, on the lower ground floor, was empty at this time of day, save for two housemaids and a dark-eyed man I took to be the earl's valet. All the other staff would be busy in kitchen or waiting at table. They rose to their feet as we entered. One of the maids was white-faced, her eyes still red-rimmed from crying.

"This is Mr Sherlock Holmes, and his colleague, Doctor Watson," said Lestrade. "They would like to ask some questions about the events of this morning."

The poor young maid looked as though she were about to burst into tears once more. Her companion placed a comforting arm about her shoulders.

"As you wish, sir," said the man. He was soberly dressed in black, his dark hair greying at the temples. "This is Mary, and Lottie, our first and second housemaids."

"And you, I take it, are the earl's valet," said Holmes.

"I am indeed, sir. Michael Duncan in my name."

"I understand, Mr Duncan, that you possess a key to his lordship's study?"

"That is correct, sir, yes."

"I presume that the butler also has a key?"

"No, sir."

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me, but why should his lordship choose to designate a task to his valet that would be more appropriate to a member of the downstairs staff? Valets do not usually assist housemaids in their duties."

"You are quite correct, sir," said Duncan with a quick smile. "However, I have been in his lordship's service for over thirty years, and my family have served the Ravensleys faithfully for generations. His lordship, being a somewhat…reticent man, prefers to entrust me with the safety of his private papers."

"And the Egyptian artefacts."

"Those too."

"Then there are three keys to the study: his lordship's Lord James's, and the one you hold yourself."

"Yes, sir."

"And Lord James would have used his own key to enter the study this morning." Holmes nodded and turned to Lestrade. "Has such a key been found upon the body?"

"I have not seen one," said the inspector.

"You have your key on your person?" Holmes asked Duncan.

The valet produced a bunch of keys from his pocket, selecting one and holding it out to Holmes. My friend took it and examined it closely through his lens.

"Yes," he said at length, "this is the key which fits the lock on the study door. I take it that the earl also has his key with him?"

"The key was on his lordship's watch chain when he dressed this morning," Duncan replied. "It never leaves his person, except when I lock the watch and other valuables away at night."

"Thank you." Throughout the interview Holmes had remained standing. His exhaustion was by now ever more apparent, but I would not embarrass him by suggesting he sit down. He would never have forgiven me. "Now," he said, addressing the two maids, "I would like you to tell me exactly what occurred this morning. Leave no detail out, no matter how unimportant it may seem to you."

The younger maid sniffed, evidently valiantly trying to hold back the tears. I was about to suggest that we leave the questions for another time when Holmes moved to the girl's side and guided her to a chair. He sat down beside her and waited a moment before saying,

"I understand that this is very difficult for you, Lottie. You have had a deeply unpleasant experience."

The girl nodded, biting her lip hard.

"However, I wish to discover exactly how Lord James came to meet his death. To do this, I will need your help. Do you feel able to assist me?"

After a moment, she nodded again, and I, not for the first time, marvelled at Holmes's ability to deal with women. Despite his general dislike and distrust of their sex, he could behave with incredible charm and compassion when the situation demanded it.

"Now," he said, "at what time did you come down to lay the fires?"

Lottie swallowed, and said in a small, wavering voice, "Just before five, sir. I always come down at the same time every day."

"And you clear the grate first in the - "

"The drawing room, sir. I work from there down to the library, and then I do the other side of the hall."

"So the study is normally the last door you reach."

She nodded. "I'd done the drawing room, and I realised I'd left my other brush in the kitchen, so I went back to get it."

"Passing the study?" Holmes asked.

"Yes, sir. Mary had started polishing the floor after I'd begun on the fires, so I had to go that way to get back. As I went past, I saw the door was open. Well, it's always kept locked, sir, his lordship's orders. I thought maybe his lordship had got up early – he does that sometimes, you see, sir. But when I walked past I saw - " Lottie's voice cracked, and she forced back a sob. Her eyes had been fixed on the floor as she spoke, but now she raised her head to look directly at Holmes. "It was Lord James, sir! Just lying on the floor, his eyes staring at the wall! I couldn't believe what I saw – I went up to him, but he weren't moving, and the look on his face…it were horrible, sir! Like he'd seen the Devil!" She gulped, tears now freely streaming down her face. I stepped forwards, about to intervene, call a halt to the interview which was only causing the poor girl more distress. To my surprise, Holmes reached out and laid a hand gently over hers. Lottie stared up at him in astonishment for some moments before a smile broke shakily through the tears.

"Thank you, Lottie. I must ask you one further question," Holmes said.

"Yes, sir?" she asked.

"Do you notice anything out of the ordinary about the study? Beyond the fact that the Egyptian statue was missing, I mean?"

Lottie thought for a log moment, before finally shaking her head. "No, sir. All was as usual."

Holmes flashed her one of his brief smiles, which she returned. "You have been a great help," he told her, releasing her hand. "I think that - "

He was interrupted by the sudden jangling of a bell. "That's the drawing room," said Duncan. "His lordship asked to be informed when you arrived. They will have finished luncheon, and no doubt wish to speak with you, Mr Holmes."

"Then we should not keep the earl waiting," Holmes said, standing with some difficulty which he almost, but not quite, managed to hide. He led the way from the servants' hall, climbing the stairs with the aid of the banister and emerging into black and white marble splendour. The butler was waiting for us in the hall, and conducted us in stately fashion to the drawing room.

"Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson and Inspector Lestrade," he announced solemnly.

The chamber into which we were ushered was enormous, opulent and gilded, the very antithesis of the clubbable atmosphere of the study. Every surface was covered with photographs and ornaments, while pier-glass mirrors hung between the windows contrived to make the room seem more impressive, if that were even possible. Present amongst this decadence was William Ravensley, who rose as we entered from his seat flanked by two women who could only be his mother and sister. The countess seemed to be bearing the loss with greater fortitude than her daughter – there was tension around her eyes and in the set of her head, but little emotion beyond that had made it to the surface. In contrast, Lady Lucy was pale and drawn, her delicate hands tightly gripping a lace handkerchief. Beyond them, in the window embrasure, stood a young man of perhaps fifteen, with a sulky expression and his hair long like one of Oscar Wilde's aesthetes, whom I took to be the Honourable Charles.

"Are, there you are, Holmes," said a harsh, educated voice from the direction of the fireplace. The marble surround was so massive that I had not even noticed the diminutive figure of the earl of Harcourt standing there until he spoke. There was an arrogant set to his head, and coupled with his large and bristling red whiskers and moustache, it served to give him a less than pleasant aspect. He did not look pleased to see us. "I hope that you have discovered exactly how those damned Egyptians broke in last night."

"I have nothing definite to report as yet," Holmes replied levelly. "At present I have no clear suspects, but I can tell you that I very much doubt the Egyptian government to be involved. Therefore I suggest that making your suspicions common knowledge to be a rather foolhardy action."

The earl glared at him, his small blue eyes sparking with anger. "How dare you speak to me in such a fashion, sir! Your brother told me that your methods were unorthodox, but he did not mention that you were also insolent!"

Holmes smiled slightly. "That does not surprise me in the least. We are not a close family, and my brother does not normally discuss my business. But neither is your family close-knit, it would seem, as you all dismissed Lord James's fears regarding the family curse."

"Stuff and damned nonsense," the earl muttered. "The boy was not in his right mind."

"That is unfair, Papa," William Ravensley objected. "We should have listened to him. Maybe if we had he would still be alive."

"Maybe if he had taken precautions and stopped mooning about like a half-wit these last few weeks, nothing would have happened," the earl retorted. "He made his fears quite clear to everyone – anyone could have taken the opportunity."

"You believe that someone murdered your son?" asked Holmes, cutting into the discussion.

"That is what you should be telling me, Mr Detective. All I know is that James was alive and well last night, and now he is dead," said Harcourt bluntly. "I hope you are not going to try and say that he died of natural causes!"

"We will have to wait for the autopsy report to determine that." At Holmes's words Lady Lucy's composure, such as it had been, broke and she buried her face in her brother's shoulder. "I must ask you all whether you saw or heard anything last night. Were none of you aware of any commotion in the study?"

There was a pause, and then the earl said, "We heard nothing. My wife and I are both heavy sleepers. Even a thunderstorm could not rouse us."

"I had far too much port," William confessed. "I knew nothing until Duncan woke me when Jamie was found."

"As I am sure you have seen, Mr Holmes, this is a large house," said the countess, speaking for the first time. Her voice was calm, hardly that of a woman who had just lost her eldest child in such shocking circumstances. "It is possible to be completely unaware of what is happening in the next room, let alone two floors below."

"I see," said Holmes slowly. "It is indeed unfortunate for Lord James that this house is so large."

"You find fault with my home, sir?" demanded the earl, stepping towards my friend in a menacing fashion. It was an absurd sight, as the man was some six inches shorter than Holmes, but there was no disguising the belligerent intent.

"Only in the sense that the scale is not conducive to an investigation such as this. In humbler dwellings the occupants usually take some notice when a member of their family is killed under their very noses," said Holmes tartly.

"I did not retain your services so that you might insult my family, Mr Holmes!" the earl roared, rapidly turning puce behind his impressive facial hair.

"In that case, I would politely suggest that you work with me rather than against me. Good day to you." Holmes turned and strode from the room, leaving me and a shocked Lestrade to follow. I could do little beyond smiling apologetically at the Ravensleys before making my exit as swiftly as possible. Behind me I heard the earl explode with rage, his voice echoing from the marble of the hall before the butler discretely shut the door.

"Holmes, you cannot speak to a peer of the realm in that manner," I said as I reached him.

"They know something, Watson, and they are deliberately keeping it from me. Until they decide to cooperate, all conversation is useless," he snapped. "What deference is due to a man who treats the death of his eldest child as a minor inconvenience?"

I could not argue with that, and was glad when Lestrade joined us, still dumbfounded at Holmes's behaviour.

"Mr Holmes, that is the earl of Harcourt!" He cried, waving an arm towards the – mercifully still closed – drawing room door.

"So I am aware."

"You – you – cannot - "

"Lestrade, there is a man dead, in all probability murdered in his own home. I am far more concerned with the implications of that crime than I am with distressing a man who, however noble his birth, has quite clearly been handed no compassion at all." Holmes put on his hat. "I should like to view Lord Amsworth's body."

I knew what that would entail, and it was not my idea of a convivial afternoon. "Then - "

"Yes, Watson. The morgue."

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks once again for those reviews! Much appreciated. :)**

**Author's note: Professor George Litefoot appears in the 1977 _Doctor Who_ story set in Victorian London_, The Talons of Weng-Chiang_. _Pyramids of Mars_ takes place in 1911. This story is a crossover of sorts, but, I hope, a reasonably subtle one. Holmes and Watson are the focus here.**

**Disclaimer: Holmes and Watson et all are out of copyright but still do not belong to me. Doctor Who elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER SIX

I must confess that mortuaries are not places in which I care to linger.

During Holmes's three year absence following the incident at the Reichenbach Falls, I had supplemented my income by working as a police surgeon. Though I welcomed the challenge of assisting in the solving of a crime once more, always I have believed that as a doctor my duty is first and foremost to the living. I was not sorry to abandon the work when the opportunity presented itself, even if I did still find myself examining corpses for Holmes from time to time.

The mortuary at Scotland Yard was on the lower ground floor, and as we descended we all but ran into Professor Litefoot as he was leaving the building.

"Ah, inspector! Excellent timing – I was on my way to present you with my report," the eminent pathologist announced when we had generally apologised for almost knocking him down.

"Mr Holmes and Doctor Watson have come to view Lord Amsworth's body," Lestrade said when Litefoot raised his eyebrows at our presence.

"I see. Jolly good, jolly good. I thought that perhaps you might be working with us again, Doctor," said the professor, glancing at me.

"My days of wielding a scalpel are over," I replied without regret.

"Unless of course he is required to lance some unfortunate's boils," said Holmes in a voice tinged with impatience. He darted through an archway into the whitewashed room beyond. "Is the body through here?"

I had stood in that chamber many times before, the most memorable of which having been the day I made my examination of poor Ronald Adair, mere days before Holmes's return from the dead. I would always recall the tiled floor, the low sinks ranged along one wall, and the underlying scent of death that nothing could remove.

On the long table in the centre of the room lay a shrouded form. Professor Litefoot drew back the sheet to reveal the features of Lord Amsworth, but those features were so twisted as to make them almost unrecognisable. The eyes were staring; the lips drawn back from the teeth as the mouth opened in a silent scream…it did indeed seem that the unfortunate young man had died from a very paroxysm of fear.

"There is little I can tell you," said Litefoot as Holmes produced his glass and began to make an examination of the body that was at best uncomfortable and at worst downright disrespectful, "This was a perfectly healthy young man. He had a blister on his heel, no doubt from a new pair of shoes he was walking in, and a small abrasion on one hand, but apart from that I can find nothing wrong with him at all."

"No heart condition?" I asked.

The professor shook his head. "Nothing. The heart was strong and fully functional. There is absolutely no trace of poison in his blood."

"As far as you are able to ascertain," said Holmes rather indistinctly, his lens focussed on Amsworth's right shoulder.

"I have a wide knowledge of poisons, Mr Holmes, possibly enough even to match your own," Litefoot said affably, "but I can find no trace of anything I recognise."

"That does not surprise me. What do you make of this, professor?" Holmes straightened, and passed Litefoot the glass, indicating the spot on Amsworth's shoulder that had attracted his attention.

"Good Lord! However did you find that, Mr Holmes?" the professor exclaimed.

Lestrade and I exchanged a puzzled glance. "What is it?" I asked.

"It appears to be a bite of some kind. Made by what sort of creature I can't quite tell," Litefoot replied, still peering at the corpse's shoulder.

"It is an insect bite," said Holmes. "I am familiar with over thirty different types of insectoid marks, but this one is something quite new to me."

"A bite from a fly or something killed him?" asked Lestrade incredulously.

"I find that highly probable. But it was no fly, Lestrade. This was something much larger and far more deadly." Holmes's attention dropped to the corpse's left hand. He raised the arm (with difficulty, given the rigor mortis), and we could all see that the fingers were tightly clenched. "Now that is odd."

"It is indeed," agreed Litefoot, abandoning the glass and moving to stand at Holmes's elbow. "I have not been able to prise open his hand. Most unusual."

"A convulsion at the moment of death?" I suggested.

"Surely then the body would have relaxed as life left it," said Holmes, retrieving his lens and looking closely at Amsworth's fist. "He must have been holding whatever was in his palm with incredible ferocity."

"You think he was holding onto something?" asked Lestrade, scenting a clue.

"Of course. There is no other reason his fist would be clenched in such a manner. If you would assist me, Watson..?"

Litefoot watched with interest, Lestrade with curiosity as, between us and with no little effort, Holmes and I managed to prise Amsworth's fingers apart. There, in the palm as Holmes had predicted, was something rather curious: within Lord James's hand was another, small and made apparently from wood, holding a key-like implement that reminded me of something I could not immediately place.

"Good Lord," said Litefoot. "I take my hat off to you, Mr Holmes. I would never have imagined such a thing."

"What the devil is it?" demanded Lestrade.

Holmes opened his mouth to respond at the exact same moment that the place I had seen that strangely-wrought key sprang into my mind. "The hand of Seth!" I exclaimed, and added when they all looked askance at me, "It is identical to that of the figure of Horus in the British Museum. It must have come from the missing statue."

Holmes smiled. "Well done, Watson. That is exactly what it is."

"This rather gives the impression that Lord James was trying to prevent the intruder from stealing the statue. There was a struggle, and Lord James came off the worse."

"That is certainly how it appears," Lestrade agreed. "But how did they kill him? Run a spider up his sleeve?"

Holmes rolled his eyes at the suggestion, but the inspector rounded on him. "Well, how do you explain it, Mr Holmes?"

"I don't propose to. Not yet, at any rate." Holmes put his glass away and bent over the corpse, carefully plucking the piece of carved wood from the claw-like hand. As he straightened he suddenly stopped, one hand to his chest, a faint frown on his face.

"Holmes?" I asked, stepping forwards.

Holmes's frown became a grimace of pain. He coughed, hard, a spasm of some kind wracking his body. He would have fallen had Litefoot not caught his arm to steady him. I was at my friend's side in a moment, putting my arm around him to take his weight. "Holmes, this is ridiculous," I hissed, "We should get you to a hospital!"

"Do so, Watson, and our friendship is at an end," he replied through clenched teeth.

"Then you must come home with me at once. If you continue here you will surely collapse!"

With an effort, and, judging from his ashen face, a great deal of pain, he straightened. He took a step and stumbled once more. "Very well," he agreed at last, and fell to coughing again before we had gone more than a few yards. Lestrade despatched a passing constable to hail us a cab, and I helped Holmes to sit down upon the stairs while we waited for it to arrive. The inspector looked genuinely worried at the sight of him hunched there, attempting to catch his breath.

"Lord, Doctor," he said to me in an undertone, "the way things seem to be going we'll be laying Mr Holmes out before long!"

"I sincerely hope not!" I replied with feeling.

"As do we all, but still…he looks bad, Doctor."

I knew it, and I now knew the cause, but when dealing with Sherlock Holmes nothing was ever as simple as it might appear.

By the time we returned to Baker Street, Holmes had become so very weak that he accepted my assistance in alighting from the cab without argument.

Mrs Hudson, having evidently been watching for our arrival, met us on the front step and helped me to get Holmes inside. Together we almost carried him up the stairs to his bedroom. Our landlady muttered and shook her head throughout, her eyes betraying her concern.

"What are we to do, Doctor? He is getting worse!" she exclaimed the moment we were alone in the sitting room. "When I saw him getting out of the cab I thought he would drop dead in front of me!"

I could naturally not tell her of my conclusions regarding the cocaine. Instead I said, "He is working too hard, and he will not rest. The sooner this case is over, the better."

Mrs Hudson clucked and shook her head once more. "Have you eaten, Doctor?"

My stomach took the opportunity to remind me that I had had nothing since breakfast. "I have not," I said, "and neither has Mr Holmes. That is a large part of the problem."

"I'll bring something up for you both." As she reached the door, Mrs Hudson stopped and turned back to me, withdrawing two slips of paper from her apron. "I almost forgot – two gentlemen called while you were out. Very odd one of them was, too."

"Odd? In what way?" I asked, my thoughts immediately turning to Ibrahim Namin and his peculiar obsession.

"Eccentric, I'd call him. All pop-eyes and teeth. And the longest scarf I've ever seen! He wouldn't wait, just left this and said I was to make sure I put it into your hand."

I took the folded paper. Written on it, in spidery scrawl, were the words: THE SECOND OF MARCH: SETH GOES FORTH.

"I hope it means something to you, Doctor," said Mrs Hudson. "I confess it has me mystified! He tried to tell me the message, but I made him write it down. How could I remember something so outlandish?"

"No doubt it will mean something to Mr Holmes," I replied, wondering what connection the man from the British Museum could have with the case. He had been looking for Namin… "What was the other message?"

She presented me with a calling card.

"'Doctor Moore Agar, 27 Harley Street'. This is all? Nothing more?"

"He said that, should you require it, he will call again at a more convenient time," said Mrs Hudson. Noticing my blank expression, she shrugged. "It is a day for mysteries it would seem, sir."

"It is indeed," I agreed, scratching my head. Once she had left, I spent several minutes pacing the room but could shed no light on either of the messages. I had never heard of Doctor Moore Agar, and could see no reason why he should be calling upon me. And as for the other missive…

Eventually I heard a cough, and went to Holmes's door to find him stretched out upon his bed, staring at the wall. The curtains had been pulled across the window, and in the half-light he had the appearance of an effigy on a tomb. After Lestrade's pronouncement of earlier, the sight made me inwardly shudder.

I leaned upon the door frame for some time, waiting to see if he would speak. When it appeared that he would not, I decided that I had to take the bull by the horns. I would have to confront him or I would spend the rest of my life regretting it.

"Do you remember our conversation of last evening?" I asked, attempting to keep my voice conversational. "If you do, you may recall my telling you that if you did not rest you might never work again." Silence greeted my words. "I was not joking, Holmes."

A hand waved, weakly, at me in the gloom. "Please, Watson, no lectures. I haven't the strength," he whispered.

"That is no one's fault but your own," I told him bluntly.

There was a harsh laugh. "Surely some of the blame must be taken by this wretched chill."

"That chill is merely a consequence of the real problem. It is not the cause."

Silence again.

"I know, Holmes," I said.

There was no response. I waited, but when he still said nothing I sighed and withdrew, closing the door behind me. I very much felt that Mycroft's faith in me was entirely misplaced.

For the second day in a row, I ate my meal in solitary state.

Afterwards I took my notebook up to my room and busied myself with writing up the particulars of the case so far. By the time I looked at the clock again it was well into the evening and my fire had burned down low. Reluctant as I was to share the sitting room at present I did not wish to bother Mrs Hudson for more coal when there would be a fire downstairs, and so I gathered my things and descended.

The sitting room was in darkness, but for the orange glow from the grate. In the firelight I could see Holmes sitting before it, head back and eyes closed in a familiar contemplative pose. He did not stir as I entered, and I deliberately said nothing as I methodically moved around the room, pulling the curtains and turning up the gas. Once the light was full I could see that there were several objects spread out on the hearthrug: the wooden hand, which I had completely forgotten as we left Scotland Yard and which Lestrade would doubtless be missing; a perfunctory sketch of the missing statue, made presumably from one of the photographs; two fat volumes about Egypt, and the man in the scarf's note. There was also an empty soup bowl discarded on the table beside his armchair – perhaps something I said had had an effect after all.

He sat there, cross-legged upon the rug, fingers steepled in front of his face, for quite some time. I found a copy of the day's Times on the sofa and immersed myself in the news, content to avoid conversation until it was requested. It seemed that Mycroft had been successful in keeping Lord Harcourt's accusations out of the press, as there was no mention of the theft of the statue, merely a small piece with little detail regarding the death of Lord Amsworth.

At length, Holmes opened his eyes. "We have three days," he said ominously.

"Until what?" I asked automatically, his voice startling me from my musing whether or not to ring for supper.

"Until we have the denouement of this case." He held up the message brought by the man in the scarf. "The second of March is next Monday. According to your mysterious friend that is when the god Seth will make his appearance."

"Surely you don't believe that, Holmes. The man was more than a little odd."

In response he picked up one of the books that had been lying open upon the rug, and pointed to a paragraph, tapping the page with one long finger.

"'Seth, also known as Set, or Sutek,'" I read. "'God of the desert, lord of storms and chaos. Called the Typhonian Beast by some cultures. In Egyptian mythology, Seth was the brother of Osiris, Nepthys and Isis. He quarrelled with Osiris, ultimately murdering him and dismembering his body, scattering the pieces to the four winds. A grieving Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, gathered the disparate parts and restored her husband's corpse, conceiving Horus as she did so. Osiris was embalmed and enthroned as the Lord of the Dead, the archetypal mummy.' Sounds like a pleasant family."

"Isis naturally raised Horus to hate his father's murderer. The battles between them resound through Egyptian mythology," said Holmes. "Seth gouged out Horus's left eye, which represented the moon." He pointed to the sketch with the stem of the empty pipe he had taken from the table. "Whoever stole that statue had a deliberate purpose in mind. The second of March being one of the ancient festival days of Seth, we can assume that the person behind the robbery may have plans to act upon that particular day."

"You don't surely believe that anyone would seriously attempt to raise this god?" I asked incredulously. "Such an aim is ludicrous!"

"You of all people should know not to underestimate the lunatic mind, Watson. Those in the grip of a mania can convince themselves of all kinds of fantastical things."

There was silence for some moments, during which we both stared at the collection of objects on the rug. Very silly we must have looked; I am sure, sitting before the hearth like two schoolboys.

"Namin is involved. You are sure of that?" I asked eventually.

"As sure as I can be. Mycroft provided me with our quarry's address, and I have set the Irregulars on his tail." I must have looked surprised, as Holmes smiled, pleased to have pulled another trick out of his hat. "I have been busy, Watson, while you have been skulking upstairs."

"Holmes," I began, rather affronted at his use of the word 'skulking', but he shook his head.

"My body may presently be failing me, but my mind is not, and it has been far from idle. We have much to do if we are to conclude this case by Monday."

"Holmes," I said, persisting, "We need to - "

I was interrupted by the bell from below. Immediately, Holmes hauled himself to his feet. He dropped a newspaper over the discarded soup dish, sweeping up the objects from the rug and tucking the wooden hand away in his waistcoat pocket.

A few moments later there was a tap on the sitting room door, and Holmes waited briefly before calling out with something of his old energy, "Do come in, Mr Ravensley! We have been expecting you."

The door opened to reveal the quietly bemused face of the Honourable William Ravensley, evidently just as surprised to find himself expected as I was myself. With him was a woman in deep mourning, her face shrouded by a thick net veil which she lifted to allow us to see pretty features and a concerned expression.

"I apologise for the lateness of the hour, gentlemen, and for neglecting to warn you of our visit," Ravensley said and, seeing Holmes's expectant face, added, "though I see now that it would have been unnecessary."

My friend waved them to seats upon the sofa, which for once was free from obstructions. "I take it that you have news for me?"

"Of a sort." Ravensley sat down, and exchanged a glance with his young companion. "Mr Holmes, we have not been honest with you regarding Jamie's death."

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

**Once again, so many thanks for those reviews! You people say such nice things. (blushes)**

**Disclaimer: Holmes and Watson et al are out of copyright but nonetheless do not belong to me. Doctor Who elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER SEVEN

Holmes leaned forwards in his chair, a familiar gleam in his eye, and beckoned for the young man to continue.

"For more than three years now, my father and brother have not lived harmoniously," Ravensley said. "They did once get on well, but of late my father has become…difficult. Jamie is…was of a much softer temperament, and sadly did not seem to measure up in my father's eyes to all that an heir should be. This business over the curse and the statue just made relations worse between them."

"Yes, I did perceive that the earl seemed less than grieved by your brother's death," Holmes remarked.

Ravensley blushed. "I can only apologise for his behaviour, Mr Holmes. It was completely unwarranted, and unacceptable, especially in light of his request for your assistance in the first place."

"That matters little now, as I am no longer retained by your family to investigate the case." My friend waved a telegram in the air, before throwing it onto his desk where it landed amid a pile of other papers.

"That may be the earl's decision, Mr Holmes, but I can assure you it is not ours," said the young lady at Ravensley's side. "Jamie deserves justice, and you are the one who can make sure that he receives it."

Holmes smiled slightly and inclined his head. "Your faith in me is most flattering, Lady Amanda. But if I am to have any success in this matter you both must be completely honest with me. There must be no concealing the facts purely to shield the family honour."

"We understand that, Mr Holmes," said Ravensley quickly. "Had it not been for my father's express instructions I would have told you all this morning."

"Then we must hope that later is indeed better than never."

I readied my notebook as Ravensley and Lady Amanda exchanged a glance. She nodded encouragingly and he turned back to face us.

"There was a quarrel," Ravensley said, "Last night, after we had all retired. I could hear the raised voices as I prepared for bed – my father had left the study door open and the house is not so vast as you have been led to believe. He was angry that Jamie had decided to consult you over a matter he believed to be of no importance. You must understand that my father has a deep hatred of the public gaze, and cannot countenance the idea of a stranger being privy to our family secrets."

"And yet he chose to engage me himself, to investigate your brother's death," Holmes pointed out.

"I did think it strange at the time, but everything was in such an uproar that I had no time to query the decision. Later I supposed that as you already knew of Jamie's fears he thought it better to involve just one person rather than many. And, as he knows Mr Mycroft Holmes a little I believe he assumed you would be as circumspect as your brother." Ravensley smiled apologetically. "A little naïve of him, I will confess, but he was unaware of your reputation."

Holmes glanced at me and smirked slightly. "It would seem that your readership is not so universal as you have led me to believe, Watson."

I ignored him, knowing him to be twitting me and feeling that his timing could have been better. "Your father has this attitude towards your brother, and yet he agreed to put the Egyptian relic up for sale," I said to Ravensley. "That is a little odd, is it not?"

"The statue being up for sale was my mother's doing. She feared for Jamie's safety and communicated with Christie's auction house. When my father found out he was furious, and would have withdrawn the statue had it not been too late. Instead he insisted that the reserve price be raised to such a ludicrous amount that no one would bid. He did not want to be rid of the thing at all."

"How do you believe your brother came to meet his death?" Holmes asked after a moment's consideration.

"I cannot truly explain how it was done, Mr Holmes, but I believe that either Jamie's mind turned and he did away with himself, or the quarrel with my father took a more sinister turn," said Ravensley seriously.

I blinked in surprise. "You imagine your father capable of murder?"

"I imagine him capable of anything where the statue is concerned, Doctor," he replied. "Two days ago a man called asking questions about it, and whether we had had an Egyptian lurking outside the house."

"And had you?" Holmes asked sharply.

"Jamie swore that such a man was following him, but none of us ever caught sight of the fellow. The questions drove my father into such a passion that he threw the man out of the house with his own hand, despite their difference in size. The statue has some kind of hold over him. In latter years it has become an obsession."

Holmes tapped a long finger against his lips, frowning. I could imagine his great brain putting the pieces together, discarding the ones that did not fit and finding connection where I could see none. "After the quarrel, did you hear anything more?"

Ravensley shook his head. "The door slammed, and that was the end of it all. I did slip down the landing to Jamie's room to check that he was all right, but the door was locked and he would not answer my knocks."

"And you thought nothing unusual in that?"

"He would frequently be incommunicative when he was in a temper. I assumed that if he wished to speak with me he would seek me out in the morning."

"At what time did your father retire?"

"I do not believe that he did, Mr Holmes, at least not before I fell asleep myself. He frequently remains locked in the study until the early hours."

Holmes nodded, and turned to the young woman seated on the sofa. "And you Lady Amanda? You heard nothing?"

"I have been residing with Lady Amelia in the east wing," she replied. "We are separated from the main house by a stout door, and heard nothing at all save a little rain on the roof just after two o'clock."

"I think, Mr Holmes, that Jamie may have been attempting to destroy the statue," said Ravensley. "He had spoken of it many times before, of his desire to destroy it before it destroyed him."

"Your father's valet told us that your brother had a key to the study. Why so, when there was such animosity between the earl and his heir?" Holmes enquired.

"My mother insisted, in case anything should happen to my father when he shut himself away. He has suffered one apoplexy already, and she feared for his safety in a locked room."

"Very sensible," I said. "Vital seconds would be lost breaking down a door."

"Did Lord James also have a key to the display cabinet?" Holmes asked.

Ravensley shook his head. "Only my father has that key, and it never leaves him."

"Surely, then, if your theory holds true your brother would have been forced to break into the cabinet in order to dispose of the statue. The only evidence of tampering I observed was the work of an expert. Even if Lord James possessed the capability, which I doubt, the police would have discovered tools near his body, and they did not. And even if that were the case, where is the statue now. I take it that it has not been found anywhere in the house or grounds?" Ravensley shook his head. "Then are we to believe that your brother somehow broke into the case with his bare hands, got the statue out of the house and then returned to do away with himself in the study? And what of the loaded revolver found beside the body?" Holmes huffed sharply. "No, Mr Ravensley, it won't _do_."

The young man looked chastened, and bowed his head. Lady Amanda rested her hand on his arm and squeezed it gently. "There is the other matter, Will."

Holmes's ears pricked up like a foxhound's. "Other matter?"

"Something _was_ found in the study, Mr Holmes, but it was not the statue."

"My grandfather brought back a great many curiosities from Egypt," Ravensley explained, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a cloth bundle which he handed to Holmes. "My father has continued the collection. I have never seen anything like this amongst his artefacts, however."

Holmes took the bundle and carried it to his desk, where he carefully unwrapped it. I joined him to see for myself what it contained – lying there on the white material was what appeared to be a large black beetle, its shiny carapace gleaming with jewel-like colours in the gaslight, rather as a puddle of oil will do in the sun. It looked alive – Holmes gingerly prodded it with a pencil, but it did not move, for which I was unaccountably grateful.

"A scarab beetle," he announced. "A native of Egypt, and certainly not of Mayfair." He reached for his lens, which was lying on the desktop, and had to catch himself on the back of his chair. To his credit, he turned the stumble into an almost natural movement as he seated himself, but I had not missed the return of the weakness. "I take it," he said, addressing Ravensley and Lady Amanda, "that nothing like this has even been brought to the house? Not even by a visitor?"

"Never," Ravensley said firmly. "We found it in the grate, of all places. The police missed it entirely."

"Now that is interesting. What caused you to disturb the ash in the grate?"

"My father insisted that we search for Jamie's key. It was not on his…his body, and Duncan could find it nowhere else."

Holmes nodded. He poked at the beetle again, and the thing flipped over onto its back, startling me with the abruptness of its movement. Something fell from its underside, to land with a clatter on the desktop. "What do you make of that, Watson?" Holmes asked after a brief study of the creature, handing me the glass.

I was not entirely sure what I was meant to be looking at, but I dutifully bent over the insect. Its innards had been revealed, and there were oddly-shaped pieces of metal filling its shell. As I looked closer, the muddled parts resolved themselves into a regular pattern that struck a chord in my memory. "Well, it looks as though…" I faltered, unable to bring the image I had in my mind's eye close enough to define it.

Holmes slowly raised a hand and pointed towards the clock on the mantelpiece. I watched it blankly for a moment before another chord struck, and then another, and quite suddenly I had it.

"Clockwork!" I exclaimed. "This pattern – it is like the cogs and gears of a clock!"

Ravensley stared as though we had both run mad. "A clockwork beetle? That is preposterous!"

"Not entirely, Mr Ravensley. See for yourself," said Holmes, and I handed the lens to the young man. He hunched over the scarab, and Holmes leaned back in his chair to address us all. "The workmanship is rather in advance of any technique with which I am familiar, but I can tell you that this insect, however real it may appear, has certainly never been alive."

"But why would anyone go to the trouble of making a toy beetle?" I wondered.

"That is no toy, Watson. And I would not touch it if I were you," Holmes added as Ravensley reached out a finger to prod the scarab's carapace. "I firmly believe that secreted somewhere within that delightful creature is the poison which killed your brother." Ravensley drew back as though he had been burned.

"Poison?" I repeated. "But Professor Litefoot could find no trace of poison!"

Holmes held up a finger. "No trace of any poison known to European science, as I believe I said before. I was expecting something of the sort. There are many poisons yet to be identified by our laboratories, Watson, a large quantity of them fast-acting and virtually undetectable. Had it not been for the bite on Lord James's shoulder, I should never have made the connection."

"Why would anyone wish to poison Jamie?" Lady Amanda asked, staring at the scarab on the desk in astonishment. "He never did anyone the least harm."

"And yet you did not wish to marry him," Holmes replied, much to my surprise.

She stared at him in shock for some seconds before lowering her eyes. "I see that the stories of your deductive abilities were not exaggerated, Mr Holmes. You are quite correct. The match was not for love, but arranged by our parents when we were both children. It was never distasteful to me, as I have known Jamie for most of my life, but I did not love him. I was intending to ask him to release me from our engagement, as I…find my heart is taken by another."

"That other man being his brother."

There was a nod in response. Ravensley coloured, but drew himself up. "We were not proud of the fact, Mr Holmes," he said defensively. "Jamie cared for Amanda, and was happy about the approaching wedding. He would have been heartbroken when we told him, which is why we put it off for so long, but he had to know eventually." He shook his head. "It was our intention to tell him once the stupid business with the statue was over."

"He was a good, kind, man, Mr Holmes, and we bore him no malice," said Lady Amanda, the idea that this new information might cause Holmes to regard them as suspects evidently occurring to her. It had occurred to me at almost the same moment. "We did not kill him, you _must_ believe that."

There was a long pause. The young couple regarded my friend much as prey might look at the hunter bearing down upon it. I watched him as well, but he was giving nothing away. Lady Amanda cast a desperate glance in my direction, but I could offer her no comfort. This new revelation looked bad for them, and, had Lestrade been the one listening to their story, I knew that they would swiftly have been making a trip to Scotland Yard, whatever the circumstances.

The pause stretched on interminably. I saw the colour drain from Lady Amanda's face, and helped Ravensley to seat her once more upon the sofa, fetching a small glass of brandy from the sideboard which he persuaded her to drink. Still Holmes said nothing, wrapped in some deliberation of his own and oblivious to the poor girl's distress.

At last I could stand no more. "Holmes!" I said loudly, making the young people jump and my friend to finally swing round in his chair to face us.

"Yes, Watson?" he asked, as though nothing important had been said that little time before.

"What is your verdict?" I demanded, seeing the wide eyes of Ravensley and Lady Amanda turned on him in a mixture of hope and trepidation.

He looked at them in surprise, and blinked. "Oh. I doubt the murder to have been calculated, and I do not think that either of you are capable of constructing a clockwork beetle to administer foreign poison. I suspect that Lord James was unfortunate enough to disturb the person whose aim was to remove the statue from the earl's possession. Your father is interested in astronomy, is he not?" he asked Ravensley.

The young man just looked at him for some moments, no doubt trying to assimilate the flow of words which exonerated and questioned him at the same time. "Yes," he said eventually, "he is fascinated by the heavens."

"Would I be correct in thinking that he has made particular study of the phases of the moon?"

"You are, Mr Holmes. He has even written a monograph upon the subject."

Holmes nodded, and lapsed once more into silence, eyes fixed on the fire.

"We must go," said Lady Amanda when it became clear that he would say no more. "We promised Lady Harcourt that we would be no more than an hour."

"Please say nothing about our dreadful conduct towards Jamie," Ravensley said earnestly. "We will try to make amends, but I would rather no one heard about it except from ourselves."

"Of course," I promised him. "We have kept the secrets of kings, and will treat yours with the same discretion."

They both seemed almost pathetically grateful for the assurance. I supposed that they had thought their relationship well-enough hidden that no one would guess, but then they had not before put it to the test of Sherlock Holmes. I saw them to the sitting room door – when they were about to depart Holmes said quite suddenly and without even turning,

"One more thing: have the chimneys at Harcourt House been swept recently?"

"Why, yes," Lady Amanda replied, her pretty brow furrowed in confusion at the apparently irrelevant question, coming as it did a propos of nothing. "On Wednesday. There was a dreadful mess – her ladyship was most put out."

When Holmes did at last look up, his face was creased by a satisfied smile. "That is exactly what I expected to hear. Thank you."

We all pressed him, but he would say nothing more on the matter. It was infuriating – I for one could not see the connection that the sweeping of chimneys could have with Lord James's death, and suspected him of being deliberately obtuse.

The clock struck nine as the young people left us. Ravensley wondered whether he should warn Mycroft of his father's displeasure with the handling of the investigation.

"I think not," said Holmes with a smile. "You would do better to warn the earl to beware of my brother."

When they had gone he struggled up from his chair. "Ring for supper, Watson," he said, and then grimaced, one hand pressed to his stomach. Recalling the empty soup dish I could guess what had happened: a sudden influx of food after so long an abstinence had upset his digestion. He tried to move, but his legs buckled and I grabbed his arm as he caught hold of the back of the sofa. Somehow he remained standing, braced awkwardly between myself and the furniture.

"No more food for you tonight, old man," I told him.

"You told me to eat!" he protested.

"A little, yes, and gradually. You have not eaten properly in weeks – if you have any more you will overload your system and be sick. Your body cannot handle too much at present."

"Honestly, Watson, you are never satisfied," Holmes said peevishly as I led him off towards his bedroom once more. "I have done as you ordered, rested and eaten, and still you are not happy. And I feel little better."

I could not help but smile at his childish expectation that he would be well again after an hour or two of sleep and a bowl of broth. "Rest and food over a period of weeks, not hours, is what I prescribed," I said. "You expect too much of yourself."

He groaned as he lay down on the bed, one hand flung limply over his eyes. "I must be rid of this infernal weakness, Watson. What use am I like this?"

I did not answer him until I reached the door. For a moment I paused on the threshold as I had done earlier that day. "I think you know what you have to do, Holmes," I said, and turned out the light.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

**Many thanks as always for the feedback!**

**Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are out of copyright but still (sadly) do not belong to me. Neither do various Doctor Who elements that are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes. The clockwork beetle, however, is the invention of my twisted little mind. :)**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER EIGHT

I was late down to breakfast the next morning, my sleep interrupted by dreams involving screaming corpses, hordes of scarab beetles and dancing hypodermic syringes. Slumber only overcame me when the drays were rattling in the street below, and it was nearly nine o'clock by the time I had shaved and dressed and was awake enough to find my way downstairs.

To my surprise, the table was not laid and the room was empty – a quick check of Holmes's bedroom revealed that to be unoccupied as well. I was incredulous, as only the night before Holmes had been unable to even leave the room, and now he was apparently off gallivanting around the town! The uncharitable side of me suspected him of having taken advantage of my disturbed night to go off alone and cursed him for his recklessness. It was unfortunate that I kicked the coal scuttle in frustration at precisely the same moment that Mrs Hudson entered with a tray.

"Good morning, Doctor," she said, pointedly ignoring my lapse of self-control.

I felt myself colour with embarrassment. "When did Mr Holmes go out?" I asked.

"Early – before eight," she replied, laying out my breakfast. "He asked me to assure you that he had eaten, and that he would take care not to walk far. I confess to being surprised at the energy he had, after seeing him so unwell yesterday."

"It will only be temporary. He has too much faith in his own stamina." Damn the man! What was I going to do with him? Even the threat of nervous collapse would not stop him from chasing down a criminal.

I ate my breakfast and tried to read the _Morning Post,_ but I could not keep my mind on anything, wondering where he was and whether he was all right.

A ring at the doorbell mid-morning startled me from my chair. I was halfway down the stairs when Mrs Hudson appeared from below to answer the door. She shot me a surprised glare for daring to be in the hall when she was quite capable of responding to the summons, but I remained there, filled with trepidation in case Holmes had indeed collapsed, or even worse…

"Ah, Doctor. Is Sherlock here?" Mycroft Holmes asked when Mrs Hudson had ushered him over the threshold.

I hesitated, rather surprised to see the elder Holmes for the second time in two days. "No," I said eventually. "I have not seen him this morning."

"He is feeling better, then. Good. I take it that is the reason you have not been in contact with Doctor Agar?"

"Agar…you sent Agar here?"

"Of course. Excellent man is Agar. You needed the opinion of an expert, Doctor, someone to corroborate what you have no doubt been repeatedly telling that brother of mine."

My head felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton, fuddled from lack of sleep. "Please, won't you come up?" I asked, realising belatedly that the hall was not the correct setting for such a conversation.

Mycroft eyed the seventeen stairs with disgust, but said, "Very well, if I must. Why Sherlock could not have taken rooms on the ground floor I will never understand." I followed him as he began the steep climb to our sitting room.

"I take it that my brother is not following your medical advice," he remarked, sinking gratefully into an armchair and strenuously mopping his brow.

"I am afraid to say that you are correct," I said reluctantly.

"He always was stubborn, even as a boy. Caused no end of trouble – I remember his nurse once having to hold him down to pour cod liver oil down his throat because he repeatedly refused point blank to take it." Mycroft shook his head and took a large pinch of snuff, which caused him to sneeze violently. "I have come," he said when his eyes had stopped watering, "at great disruption to my routine, I might add, to tell Sherlock that I have had a visit from the earl of Harcourt. I do not take kindly to disturbances within the Diogenes, Doctor."

"The earl is a…volatile man," I said, attempting to be diplomatic.

He snorted. "That's a delicate way of putting it."

"Holmes should not have spoken as he did."

"Don't apologise for my brother, Doctor. I am quite sure that the earl deserved every word. It is a shame, as he used to be quite a steady sort of chap at one time. Wouldn't have admitted him to the Diogenes had he not been. Hysterical ranting was never his style."

I frowned. "He has not always been so harsh?"

"That's not for me to say. But he certainly did not cause scenes within the club walls!" said Mycroft. "The man must have taken leave of his senses."

This chimed with the comments made the previous evening by Harcourt's son. My suspicion of the earl began to grow. "I see that you have been successful in keeping Harcourt's accusations from the press," I said, electing to keep my suspicions to myself.

"We were ably assisted by the fact that the Egyptian ambassador has gone to ground somewhere. Ah." Mycroft smiled with satisfaction as Mrs Hudson entered with coffee.

"Gone to ground?" I repeated when our landlady had left.

"What? Oh, yes, can't be found. And Harcourt has been…persuaded that rash accusations are in no one's interest, so trouble is averted for now. I never did trust that ambassador – something odd about him. He has shifty eyes. Is Sherlock any nearer to solving the case?"

"A little, brother mine, a little," said a familiar voice. I looked round to see Holmes standing in the doorway, having come up the stairs without either of us hearing him. His face was still gaunt and grey, but did at least have some life in it.

"You are a fool, Holmes," I told him shortly, unable to see him standing there with a cheerful smile when I had been going through mental agonies on his behalf. "To go off on your own like that - "

"Forgive me, Watson, I had a lead or two to follow up. Good morning, Mycroft, what is the news from Olympus?" he enquired, throwing his hat and coat in the general direction of the stand on the landing and heading for the fire.

"You are not taking proper care of yourself," Mycroft observed sharply. "It would be in your interest to listen to Doctor Watson more closely."

"But I am obeying the orders of my physician. I have had food, and sleep, and a little energy has been restored to me," came the smooth reply. "You have never expressed such concern for my health before, Mycroft."

"You have never looked so damnably awful before," retorted his brother. "For goodness's sake, sit down before you fall down."

This at least Holmes did do, stretching his hands towards the blaze. It was still unseasonably cold, and I realised that he was shivering. "Where the devil have you been?" I demanded quietly as I draped one of the rugs from the sofa around his shoulders.

"The Royal Observatory, at Greenwich. It has been an illuminating morning," he said, taking the cup off coffee Mycroft handed him.

"And why could you not wait until I was able to join you?"

"You needed your sleep. And the errand was a simple one – I took a cab on both sides of the river, so you need have no fear of my wandering around in the cold. I do not need a nursemaid, Watson."

Mycroft snorted. "That is a matter of opinion."

Holmes glared at him. "And to what, precisely, do we owe this honour, Mycroft?" he asked. "Two visits in two days – can the government spare you for so long?"

His brother cast me a long-suffering look. "You can imagine what he was like as a child, can you not? As I was telling Doctor Watson before your unceremonious entrance, Sherlock, I have had to have words with the earl of Harcourt over you."

"No doubt they were, on his part at least, uncomplimentary ones."

"You should know better than to antagonise men like Harcourt, especially when there is a chance that they may come running to me!" declared Mycroft. "Heated discussion is no aid to the digestion."

"May we be privy to what was said?" Holmes enquired, raising an eyebrow.

"No, Sherlock, you may not. Suffice it to say that he will be making no more accusations, against either yourself or the Egyptian government."

"Bravo, Mycroft. Another international disaster averted."

"It would appear that there was little danger of one ever appearing." When Holmes gave him a quizzical look, Mycroft added, "Dratted ambassador has vanished. Hasn't been seen since Thursday morning."

"Really? Now that is interesting…" Holmes lapsed into silence, cradling his coffee cup.

Several minutes passed without another word. When it became clear that nothing more would be forthcoming, Mycroft levered his huge frame from the chair. "I must be getting back," he said, "Luncheon at the Diogenes beckons – without, one hopes, belligerent noblemen turning up to interrupt."

I rose to show him out, but he stopped by Holmes's chemical bench. Peering round his bulk I could see that the scarab lay there, on its back with its clockwork innards on display.

"What the devil is that?" Mycroft demanded.

"Holmes believes it to be the murder weapon," I told him, feeling rather foolish to be suggesting such a thing.

He screwed his eyeglass in place and regarded the thing with distaste. "An unpleasant specimen," was his analysis.

No more was said as we descended the stairs, Mycroft puffing the whole time like a steam engine in need of a tune up. When we reached the front door, he turned to me and said, "I happen to know that Agar is out of town for a day or two. I think it would be best if I asked him to call…perhaps on Monday? Do you agree?"

"If Holmes will listen to no one else, then it would appear that we have little choice," I replied.

"Yes," Mycroft rumbled. He put on his hat. "We will settle the matter, Doctor, never fear. Sherlock will see Agar, even if I have to sit on him as I did when we were children, and that action would be fitted neither to his dignity or mine. Good day to you."

I watched him go, and then made my way back upstairs. In my absence, Holmes had spread papers all over the table, and was poring over them, his glass in one hand and the fingers of the other beating a nervous and discordant rhythm on the cloth.

"Mrs Hudson will be bringing up luncheon before long," I told him, shutting the door behind me.

He merely grunted in response, pulling the papers closer and frowning at their contents. Interested despite myself, I looked at them over his shoulder. On some were his unmistakable scrawl, and a series of diagrams that appeared to my untrained eye to be some kind of planetary movement. Others had more rough sketches - which could be described as rudimentary at best, Holmes possessing little artistic talent - line drawings of a building. The tapping became louder, and I was suddenly aware that he was humming below his breath, something that I rarely heard him do.

"What have you there?" I asked.

His fingertip tattoo moved to the drawings of the planets. "The earl of Harcourt spends a great deal of time in study at the Royal Observatory," he said. "According to the curator with whom I spoke, his particular interest of late has been the expected eclipse of the moon."

"Eclipse? That is when the moon and the sun - "

" – are in such alignment that the one appears to obscure the other. And this conjunction will take place as the first of March becomes the second."

"You believe that to be significant?"

"Consider what we already know. Your mysterious friend from the museum drew our attention towards the date. And now we discover that the earl, the owner of the missing statue, has been studying a lunar phenomenon that it so take place at the very same time. Of course it is significant!" Holmes exclaimed in exasperation. He fell to coughing, and I poured him a glass of water.

"Could you not simply have sent a telegram to discover that fact?" I asked, watching him pull the rug more closely around his shoulders, long nervous fingers clutching at the material.

"There is far more to detection than merely asking questions," came the hoarse reply.

"There is more to looking after your health than sleeping a few hours and eating a little," I countered. Mycroft had been right – he did look dreadful. The life that had been in his face only a short time earlier had fled, leaving behind it gaunt features and a ghastly pallor. I could not believe that the brief rest he had had would have given him the strength he needed to make the journey to Greenwich, but my mind shied away from making the obvious connection. I did not want to believe that he would be so reckless, so utterly heedless of my concern...

He did not respond, engrossed once more in his papers, those fingers tap, tap, tapping again, as though beating on my nerves. Suddenly I could not bear to be in the same room as him.

"I am going out," I announced, and left without waiting to see whether he had even noticed that I had spoken.

By the time I had put on my hat and coat and reached the front door, I was shaking with anger, and did not even stop to inform Mrs Hudson that I would not be requiring luncheon. I had always known that Holmes was a capricious man, with moods that could fly to the heavens and descend to the very depths with alarming rapidity, but I had never even considered the possibility that he might be determined upon his own destruction. Since his return from the dead three years before, he had been constantly busy, engaged in cases which involved every section of society from the simplest of people to the very highest in the land. There had been no cause, no time for boredom, and as the years and months went on I had gradually made the assumption that he had foregone the cocaine, no longer had the need of artificial stimulation. Now, however, I could only make the appalling conclusion that his dependence had only increased during our time apart, and that now he was taking greater pains than he ever had to conceal it from me. Despite my attempts to wean him from its dreadful influence, it had a greater hold over him than ever, a hold that he did not seem to wish to break. The cocaine had him in its thrall, and it was doing its deadly work.

Did he even realise it himself? I wondered. Did he understand that the weakness, the cough, the multitude of vague and uncomfortable symptoms that were plaguing him were ultimately due to the drug? It may seem incredible to those only familiar with his habits from my writings, but though possessed of perhaps the greatest brain in England, he was quite ignorant of some of the simplest facts. And when it came to issues regarding his own health, he was apt to shut down and shut me out, despite professing to trust my medical opinion. I could only hope that, with Agar to support me, he might finally listen and accept the truth. If he did not, then I hardly dared to think of the consequences.

Pushing that thought from my mind, I took refuge at my club, wishing to be far away from complex cases, Egyptian gods and murdered aristocrats. My mind cried out for normality, something which, at Baker Street at any rate, was often in very short supply.

I will confess that after a few hours in the company of my old friend Thurston, and a game or two of billiards, I was in a calmer frame of mind when I turned once more towards home. A chance encounter with an old college acquaintance resulted in my being offered the loan of his cottage in Cornwall, as I was apparently looking much in need of a holiday. The West Country in March, and especially in such unseasonable cold, would be rugged and wet, but it might just be the very thing that Holmes needed. I returned to Baker Street with the determination to confront him over the cocaine, and to tell him quite plainly what would happen if he persisted with the drug. If I waited much longer, it might well be too late.

The chill evening air caused my breath to billow before me as I let myself into the house. Mrs Hudson must have been busy in her own quarters as there was no sign of her when I entered. For this I was grateful, as it would give me the opportunity to take Holmes by surprise and allow him no chance to manoeuvre away from the subject I intended to raise.

All was quiet as I reached the landing and hung up my coat and hat. Making as little noise as possible, I opened the sitting room door…

…and stopped on the threshold. Standing by the sofa was a man I had never seen before, a well-dressed man with tanned skin and cadaverous features. He appeared to have risen at my entrance, and smiled slightly as Holmes said,

"Ah, do come in, Watson. Professor Scarman was just about to tell me all he knows about the earl of Harcourt's Seth."

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**A thousand thanks for the reviews and for sticking with this - we're just over the halfway point now. :)**

**Disclaimer: Holmes and Watson are out of copyright but still don't belong to me, more's the pity. Doctor Who elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER NINE

I cursed myself for my poor timing.

Holmes was fairly animated, but I could not tell whether it was from more rest and a little nourishment or some other, more sinister, source. I submitted to being waved to my armchair, and Scarman resumed his seat upon the sofa.

"Bretherton asked the professor to call," Holmes clarified for me. "He is the foremost authority on the god Seth."

"An academic colleague suggested that Bretherton contact me when he asked about the Harcourt statue," added Scarman. "He was fortunate to find me in the country. Had my brother not urgently wired me to say that the Harcourt Seth was for sale, I would still be in Cairo. I have long wished to possess the statue."

"Did you make the earl an offer, then?" I asked, attempting to turn my attention to matters I found of little interest at that moment.

"I did, Doctor, but was turned down flat. It was only afterwards that I learned of the ludicrous reserve price forced upon Christie. What Harcourt hoped to achieve by setting the academic world in such an uproar I have no idea."

Holmes regarded the professor for a long moment, then said, casually, "Were the statue to be offered to you, by the back door, as it were, would you take it if the price was right?"

Scarman looked affronted at the suggestion. "I would not, sir! I am not in the habit of trading in stolen goods, for such it would be. And no one could ever steal the statue – Harcourt has made sure that his security cannot be breached."

"I apologise, Professor, I had not intended to insult you."

"Even were the statue to be stolen, purchasing it in such a manner would be dangerous in the extreme. The piece is unique, and to even attempt to sell it would draw unwanted attention upon the thief. As I am known for my interest in the god and his cult, I should fall under immediate suspicion. I should not wish to throw away my academic standing, Mr Holmes, even for such a prize."

Holmes nodded. "Yes, I see. You have studied the statue yourself?"

"A few years ago, when Lord Harcourt was more amenable to academic applications than he is at present. We know very little about it, not even the name of the person in whose tomb it was found. No records were made on the subject by Napoleon's antiquarians at the time. All that is certain is that the piece was in the possession of the countess of Harcourt when she married the fourth earl in 1803. It had been left to her by her father, a noted French antiquarian, who had died suddenly in 1799, and she brought it with her to England on her marriage. Beyond the fact that it has been in the family ever since, we know nothing. The same is true of the corresponding statue of Horus in the British Museum – study of that piece had proved inconclusive," said Scarman.

"So the statues may not be genuine?" I enquired.

"I did not say that. They certainly appear to be old enough. Their style may vaguely date them to one period or another, but it is impossible to say exactly when they were made, or for what purpose. That is part of their appeal, I confess, the mystery attached to them." The professor smiled. He was so gaunt that the action was vaguely unsettling, like that of a death's head grinning. It was an unfortunate impression, as there was nothing threatening in his manner – he seemed to me to be a genuinely passionate academic, who lived and breathed his chosen subject. "They are much sought-after."

"By the cult of Seth?" Holmes asked. Beside Scarman, he seemed positively plump-faced.

"Indeed. The cult has existed for millennia, mainly underground. Worshipping such symbols as the ones we have been discussing has been frowned upon for some time, but still a few of the brotherhood flourish. They believe that Seth – or Sutek as they call him – will lay waste to the world, raise the desert sands and wipe the planet clean. For their services, they will be well rewarded by their god, once he is in control."

"That seems a little extreme," I remarked, surprised that there were still people who would pledge allegiance to a dead religion.

Scarman shrugged. "Fanatics usually are, Doctor. There is that dark mystery to Seth which draws them in, fires their imagination. He has always inspired fanaticism because of his reputation as the Destroyer. You will always find more fanatics drawn to the dark side than the light."

There was a pause. Holmes pointed to the chemical bench behind Scarman. "What do you make of that?"

Startled, the professor looked round. The scarab still lay where I had last seen it, its open abdomen displaying the clockwork within.

"Good God." He was on his feet in a flash, bending over the creature. "Where did you get it?"

"It was brought to me by a client," said Holmes truthfully. "As you can see, it is an ingenious little thing."

"Holmes believes the mandibles to be poisoned," I said, as Scarman reached out to touch the scarab.

He looked alarmed by the suggestion and accepted the pencil I passed him. Pulling a jeweller's eyeglass from his pocket, he screwed it into place and used it to survey the creature. "The Egyptians worshipped the scarab because they believed its method of rolling dung into a ball and pushing the ball before it mimicked the sun's movement across the sky. You will find scarabs represented all over Egyptian iconography," he said. He prodded at the insect with the pencil, taking care to keep well away from its jaws. At length, he straightened. "I have never seen anything like this. Whoever made this creature was most certainly not an Ancient Egyptian. Their society was highly advanced, but the mechanism inside this insect would be far beyond their capabilities."

"Then someone made it recently," I said. "But why? To frighten? To kill?"

"That is entirely possible, especially if one is indeed dealing with fanatics," Scarman replied.

"It is a horrible thought."

"Professor Scarman, have you ever had dealings with an Egyptian called Ibrahim Namin?" Holmes asked. He had had his eyes closed, assimilating the information, but now they snapped open to fix the professor with a sharp gaze.

"I have not," Scarman said immediately.

"You can categorically state that?"

"Of course. I deal with academics, Mr Holmes, and scarcely venture from that rarefied world. I have never heard the name before. Should I know it?"

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "The man believes himself to be a follower of the god of which you profess to be the authority. I merely thought that your paths may have crossed – perhaps at the British Museum?"

"I have not been to the museum since my return from Egypt, so there is little likelihood of our meeting." The professor consulted his watch. "I fear that I must return to my work – I have arrangements to make for my voyage next week."

"You are going back to Cairo?" I asked.

"I have much still to do there. Only a fraction of the tombs have yet been uncovered – the work will take a lifetime and still not be finished. Good day to you both, gentlemen – I hope I have been of some assistance to you."

Holmes nodded, returning to contemplation. I saw Scarman to the front door, and hailed a cab to take him home. After seeing him into it, I turned back to the door to find a familiar figure standing on the pavement and regarding the departing professor with something I could only describe as astonishment. It was the girl, Sarah, still in her distinctive boots though her skirt hem had lowered to a more decorous length than it had been the day before.

"Good afternoon," I said, and she jumped.

"Oh," she gasped, relief settling over her pretty features as she saw me, "it's _you_! You startled me."

"You looked as though you had seen a ghost. Are you acquainted with Professor Scarman?"

"Then it _was_ him," she muttered, and then seemed to shake herself. A big smile settled on her face. "In a…manner of speaking. He wouldn't remember me. Especially as we haven't met yet…" There was something a little evasive about her manner which made me suspicious. She was charming, there was no doubt about that, but one might, if they were being particularly uncharitable, describe her as shifty. She leaned against the railings, feigning nonchalance.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. Twice now she had popped up unexpectedly in connection with the case. "Is your friend not with you today?" I looked around, but the man in the scarf was conspicuous by his absence.

"Oh, the Doctor?" She smiled again. "He's around. We have a lot to do."

There was a pause, and I decided to take the opportunity to ask the question that had been puzzling me since the previous day. "Your friend, this Doctor – he sent me a message. Why - "

"That reminds me." She dug in a pocket and produced a crumpled envelope. "Another one for you."

I took the letter mechanically. "Could he not come and speak to me himself?"

"Busy," she replied simply.

"Well, could you not come in and explain to myself and Mr Holmes? You seem to know about this case, and any information - "

Sarah glanced up at the first floor window. There was a flash of movement, and the blind swung across the glass. Holmes had evidently been watching us. Sarah hesitated for a long moment, and then shook her head. "I mustn't. It could be dangerous."

"Dangerous? For whom?" I asked, now utterly perplexed.

"Everyone." She pushed herself up straight and moved off, stopping briefly to add, "You're on the right track, you know," before she slipped between a message boy and a woman pushing a pram and was gone.

Shaking my head, I climbed the stairs once more.

In my absence, Holmes had changed his coat for his mouse-coloured dressing gown and was stretched full-length upon the sofa, papers scattered around him on the floor. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep, even though he had been observing me through the window only a few minutes before. One sinewy arm trailed over the side of the settee, the sleeve drawn back by the angle to reveal a mottling of dark puncture wounds, some old, some not so. I felt my anger rise again at the sight of them, and slammed the envelope Sarah had given me down on the table.

"Is something the matter?" he asked without opening his eyes.

"I do not know why I even try to help you," I said hotly. "You seem hell-bent upon your own destruction."

After a moment, one eyelid lifted, and he saw the drawn-up sleeve and his bare forearm. "You have a suspicious mind, Watson."

"If you were not so damned secretive, I would have no need of one." I paced the floor, desperate for some outlet for the rage and anxiety that welled up within me. "Do you have any idea what you are doing to yourself?"

"It is only temporary. I had need of the stimulation – things are coming to a head, and I cannot be out of action at this moment."

"Is that all you can think about? This blasted case?"

"What else is there?"

He was so perfectly calm, so apparently unconcerned that he was slowly, inexorably, killing himself, that I confess I wanted to hit him. I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him until his teeth rattled, until I had shaken some sense into him. But I did not. One never did with Sherlock Holmes, the man who could deduce the sum total of another from the merest detail, and yet fail to grasp even the most obvious emotions of compassion and concern. His illness only bothered him insofar as it limited his activities. He had no notion of the worry that was gradually turning my nerves to shreds.

"You have no thought for me, then," I said. "You do not care that I am having to stand here and watch you inch ever closer towards death? I have seen you tread that knife-edge many times, Holmes, and always you have escaped. You always _wanted_ to escape. But now I'm not so sure. Even Moriarty could not do what you are now doing to yourself."

There was no answer. Was he ignoring my fears as he had done so often in the past? Or did he just – for once – not know what to say? I waited, but nothing was forthcoming. I stood with my back to him, not daring to turn and see whether he was looking at me, or if he had just settled back down on the sofa as though I had never spoken.

I waited, and after five long minutes I left the room, shutting the door carefully behind me. I sincerely hoped that Doctor Moore Agar would have more success, as heaven knew I had done my best and failed utterly.

There was nothing more to be said.

My first inclination was to leave the house once more, but I soon realised the foolishness of such a gesture. Where could I have gone? Only to the surgery, and I would be wondering the entire time whether Holmes had taken a turn for the worse while I was gone, whether the next syringe of cocaine would be the one that brought about the end of the world's foremost private consulting detective.

I should have left him, but I was not one to abandon a friend. I had never done so in the past, whatever the provocation; and I would not begin now, even if that friend frequently treated me shabbily and took me for granted. Had I objected I would have cut my ties long ago. The demon of the drug had been with us for a long while, lurking in the background, always ready to rear its ugly head.

I would have remained in my room, but hunger eventually got the better of me and, as Mrs Hudson would not serve me dinner in my own quarters, I was forced to descend to find the table laid and a covered plate before my chair. Holmes sat picking at the light repast our landlady had prepared for him. No words were exchanged as I took my seat and began my meal.

I half expected him to refuse food, just to spite me, but he would have to concede that if he wished to see the case through to its end he would have to do as I had prescribed. He did at least allow me my medical expertise, some of the time at least.

The atmosphere in the room could have been cut with a knife. The only sound was the clatter of cutlery on china, and the occasional pop and crackle from the fireplace. Eventually Holmes left the table, having consumed more than half of his food, much to my relief. He wandered the room, fingers idly tapping on the desk, the mantelpiece, the window frame, with that same nervous energy I had seen earlier and now put down the effects of the drug. At length he sat down at his chemical bench and drew the microscope towards him. I left him to his experiments and settled down beside the fire with a yellow-backed novel. Still not a word had been spoken between us. It was childish, but I could not bring myself to break the silence. What could I say? I did not think I had any words left.

The evening continued in the same vein. I must have dozed off, as when the clock struck ten I started into wakefulness with the feeling of a man emerging from a dense fog. The fire had burned down low, and Holmes had abandoned his chemicals to drape himself once more over the sofa. Exhaustion had finally claimed him as it had me – in sleep his face seemed younger, less haggard, care and illness temporarily washed away. I wished that the real problem could be solved so easily.

With a sigh I leaned forward to take the poker to the dying embers of the fire, and it was as I did that I noticed from the corner of my eye a movement on the other side of the room. I turned in my chair, trying to blink the sleep from my eyes, wondering whether it was a mouse, but Mrs Hudson kept the place spotlessly clean in spite of Holmes's perpetual untidiness and I had never seen any vermin in the house before.

There was a flash of movement again, and I got to my feet to investigate. I rounded the back of the sofa, but could see nothing on the floor. A check beneath the chemical bench and the sofa itself revealed nothing untoward, so I straightened, scanning the carpet with my tired eyes, straining to see anything out of the ordinary. I bumped into the sofa, bruising my knee and nearly overbalancing, though the impact did not wake Holmes, much to my surprise for he was usually a very light sleeper. I pushed myself upright, and it was then that I saw it.

Something black and shiny was crawling up Holmes's shoulder, its spindly legs dragging it over the crumpled fabric of his dressing gown. I froze in shock and horror as I realised what I was seeing, unable to move as the scarab, its deadly jaws extended, crawled inexorably towards my friend's exposed throat…

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do not belong to me, more's the pity. Doctor Who elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

* * *

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER TEN

"Holmes!" I shouted desperately, wondering what I should do.

To try and dislodge the creature might force it to press its attack, but to just leave it…how the devil had it become animated in the first place?

"_Holmes_!" I raised my voice, hoping that it would reach him, but he only stirred and muttered; no closer to waking. It was one of the great ironies that just when I needed him to be his usual alert self he was insensible. "Holmes! Holmes, for the love of God, wake _up_!"

I scanned the room, hoping for something to aid me – a revolver would be no use, even if I had time to fetch it. My eye fell on the poker, which I had abandoned on the grate. It still bore the dent in the middle from its impromptu bending by Doctor Grimesby Roylott all those years ago. I called my friend's name again, even louder than before, as I snatched it up, but still he did not wake. The scarab's forelegs were tentatively plucking at his collar. Without properly thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed for the carafe of water on the table, lifting it and dashing the entire contents into Holmes's slumbering face.

The effect was immediate. He sat up with a shout, staring wildly around him. "Watson! What the devil - "

"Your collar, Holmes!" I shouted, ignoring him and gesturing urgently at his neck. "Quickly!"

He must have seen the thing from the corner of his eye, as he threw off the dressing gown like a man who has just discovered that his clothing is on fire. It fell to the ground, and I fell with it, raising the poker and bringing it down once, twice, three times on the bundle of fabric. With great satisfaction, I heard the sound of something within smashing, and I kept hitting it until eventually a hand closed over mine, stilling my arm. I glanced round, startled, to see Sherlock Holmes's white, dripping face barely two inches from mine.

"It's all right, Watson," he said. "I think you have killed it."

The remains of the scarab lay in state between us on the table.

I cradled a glass of brandy, my heart still hammering from the shock. Holmes sat opposite me, shrouded by a cloud of blue smoke, cigarette in hand. He had lit it claiming that he needed something to steady his nerves – I did not believe it, but let it go, and tried to ignore his half-smothered coughs.

"You have saved my life once again, Watson," he had said as we stared at each other in those moments after the scarab's destruction. "I owe you a thousand apologies."

"How the devil did it come to be animated once more?" I wondered now, looking with distaste at the broken pieces, damaged beyond repair.

"In my investigations I had cause to replace the abdomen. Evidently it triggered what remained of the clockwork mechanism," said Holmes. "When fully it wound it must have been able to run for some time."

"Hideous thing." The words did not do justice to the revulsion I felt.

"And infinitely dangerous. I was fortunate that your reflexes were so quick, Watson. Had you not been…"

"Don't say it, Holmes. It did not happen."

"But it could have done." He stubbed out the remains of his cigarette, coughing as he exhaled. There was frustration evident in his expression, frustration at his own weakness. "I am slow, Watson, this illness has made me slow."

"All the more reason to allow yourself those things you need to recover," I said. How ridiculous that it had taken the threat of imminent death to make us speak to one another again!

He shook his head, eyes closed. "I have to see this case through. Just this case. Then we will see."

"Holmes," I said, not wishing to provoke another quarrel, but knowing that I had to make the situation clear, "There must be no more - "

"No, Watson. Do not speak of it. The end of the case, and then we will see."

I sighed. It was the best I was going to get. "What should we do with that?" I asked, gesturing towards the scarab.

"Give it to Lestrade. It is evidence, after all."

"What sort of man would create such a fiendish method of death?" I wondered.

Holmes raised his eyebrows. "An extremely ruthless and inhuman one," he said.

I stared at the remains on the table. They held a macabre fascination, and I could not draw my eyes away. I half-expected them to rise up and fuse themselves together, becoming whole again. There was something so incredibly…alien about them, like nothing of this earth.

I was being fanciful, I knew, the product of extreme fatigue and anxiety. Still, I could not bring myself to look away. "I will never be able to sleep with that thing in the house," I told Holmes.

I expected him to brush aside my concerns with a caustic comment, but instead to my surprise he opened the drawer of his desk and took out a cigar box. The contents emptied into the coal scuttle to join their fellows, he scooped up what was left of the scarab and placed it in the box, firmly closing the lid. This he put upon his desk and stood a heavy paperweight on top. But would that be enough to hold it?

"I still do not think I could sleep," I said, despite the unpleasant prickling sensation behind my eyelids.

"If you fear leaving the room, you are welcome to take my bed. I have too much to contemplate for sleep," he told me.

"Holmes," I began in a chiding tone, but he held up a hand.

"When the case is done, Watson, not before. And to bring this case to a conclusion, I must consider the facts at hand."

"Then I will bear you company," I replied, not quite stifling a yawn.

He gave me a despairing glance which softened into a smile. "If you insist." Moving back to the table, he spread out the papers he had been perusing that afternoon. I looked at the drawings once again, and frowned.

"This looks very familiar."

"I am glad of it. My skill as an architect is poor, but I would hope that you might recognise a house you visited only two days ago."

"Of course! Harcourt House. But why the sketches?"

Holmes sat down and lit up another cigarette. "The house did not look exactly right to me on Friday. You remember the case of the Norwood builder?"

"Very well. And we found the same ideas at Pondicherry Lodge only recently. You suspected there to be some secret, hidden room?"

"The study fireplace appeared to be too large for its function. Did you notice that, Watson?"

I shrugged. "Large houses frequently have exaggerated fittings. It is a design convention."

"Indeed. But the chimney breast in the drawing room was not on the same scale. For a relatively small room, much of the study was taken over by the fireplace." Holmes pulled one of the drawings towards him, regarding it with a frown. "I returned to the house after my trip to Greenwich today, and was fortunate enough to speak with the Honourable Charles Ravensley, a young man not inclined to be constrained by his father's orders. He was quite happy to show me over the building while the rest of the family were out."

"The earl would not have been pleased with that!"

"Indeed not. And the Honourable Charles was well aware of that fact, hence his cooperation. My tour of the house confirmed my suspicions. The study chimney, and those in the rooms directly above, is far wider than any of the others."

"What would one conceal in a chimney?" I asked, puzzled.

"Consider the requirements of the astronomer, Watson. In the country the earl might build himself an observatory, but in London he would have to be more inventive. Where would one get the best view of the stars?"

I considered for a few moments. There could only be one place, above the smog and the gas light… "The roof?"

"Bravo, Watson! The earl built himself a secret stair to the side of the chimney, to allow easy and undisturbed access to the roof," said Holmes. "It has long been his intention to study the lunar eclipse that is to take place tomorrow night. The fact that the celestial event also occurs on the festival of the god Seth would not doubt have made the date doubly important to him."

"And to the person who stole the statue, no doubt."

"Of course. The two events are inextricably linked. What is that?"

It took me a moment to realise that Holmes was pointing to an envelope protruding from beneath his papers. I picked it up and found it to be the message given to me hours before by the girl Sarah. I had completely forgotten about it. Holmes watched me with some interest as I tore open the envelope and scanned the contents.

"'As the moon swallows the sun, so Sutek will swallow the earth'," I read, mystified. "What does it mean?"

"It confirms that which we suspect: they will strike when the eclipse is at its fullest extent," said Holmes, plucking the note from my fingers and reading it himself.

"Who will strike?"

He glanced up at me in surprise, eyebrows raised. "The cult of Seth, of course. They mean to raise their god, and Ibrahim Namin is their high priest."

I am afraid to say that at some point during the night I did finally succumb to sleep, despite the attempts of murderous scarab beetles and menacing figures in hoods to invade my dreams. When I finally awoke I had a crick in my neck and a dull ache in the small of my back. Pulling my head up, I realised I had been sleeping where I sat, hunched over the table. Someone – Holmes presumably – had covered me with a blanket. Sunlight was streaming through the gaps in the curtains. It was Sunday morning – we had only a few hours to bring the case to a conclusion.

Rubbing at my eyes, I struggled up from the table. Holmes had taken possession of the sofa once more, and was fast asleep himself. Had he been in good health he would have sat up and smoked through the small hours, consumed with a case such as this. And we had never before tackled a case quite so bizarre, even taking into account the business involving the stage magician, the pelican and the corkscrew. I cast a glance towards Holmes's desk, and was relieved to see the cigar box exactly where it had been left the night before.

Yawning hard enough to crack my jaw, I stumbled up the stairs to my own room. I never had become used to broken nights, despite the many cases in which I had assisted over the years. Holmes could usually run on next to no sleep, but I was made differently. I would have liked nothing more than to lie down on my own bed and sink once more into dreams, but there was no time for that now and so I did my best to make myself look presentable. Shaved and dressed, I made my way back to the sitting room in time to hear a furious shriek from below and the sudden pattering of feet on the stairs. Before I could even consider closing the door, the small figure of Ned Wiggins, the red-headed leader of Holmes's band of street urchins, catapulted into the room.

"Mr 'Olmes! Mr 'Olmes! It's tonight, jus' like you said!" the boy exclaimed at the top of his lungs, causing me to issue a vociferous sotto-voce request for quiet.

The lad looked puzzled. "You don't mean Mr 'Olmes is asleep, do yer, sir?" he asked.

"That is exactly what I do mean," I hissed, well aware that for anyone who knew Holmes's habits it was an unusual claim to make. "You will wake him with such unwarranted noise!"

"It is a little late for such a warning, but thank you, Watson," said a familiar voice, and a hand appeared over the back of the sofa, which was shortly followed by Holmes's pale face, his sleep-ruffled hair falling over his forehead. "What the devil is the matter, Wiggins?"

"It's jus' like you said, Mr 'Olmes," said the boy, rounding the settee to hop from one foot to the other on the hearthrug while Holmes disentangled himself from the afghan in which he had wrapped himself. "Whatever they're plannin' it's 'appenin' tonight!"

"So we had surmised. Have you heard any definite plans?"

"The little fella was there again this mornin'," Wiggins said. "I 'id in the water butt under the kitchen winder – could 'ear every word they said."

I blinked in surprise. "Was the butt not full?"

"Not after I kicked the bung out," the imp replied with a wink. "That Arab bloke said everything was ready, and that 'e'd got the key for tonight. Bribed one of the watchmen to get it."

"Key to where? And which 'Arab bloke' would that be?"

"The British Museum. And the Egyptian ambassador, of course," said Holmes, as though I should already be aware of the fact. "Or, should I say the _false_ ambassador, as I have no doubt that the real one disappeared somewhere between London and Cairo. Do you recall Mycroft describing him as 'an odd little fellow'? Remember as well the footprint on the carpet at Harcourt House."

I struggled to recall – a great deal had happened since then. "You mean that - "

"Indeed. The false ambassador was at the house the night Lord Amsworth was murdered."

There was a knock at the door, and a disgruntled Mrs Hudson appeared with a telegram. She cast a disapproving glance in Wiggins's direction, but the lad took no notice, awaiting his orders from Holmes.

"You heard nothing more?" my friend asked.

Wiggins shook his head. "They started talkin' funny after that – shoutin' at each other and runnin' on a mile a minute. Couldn't understand 'em."

"Very well. You had better get back there and let me know immediately if there are any further developments."

The boy saluted and darted off, nipping round Mrs Hudson, who was still standing in the doorway. A few moments later the front door banged shut behind him.

"Mr Holmes - " our long-suffering landlady began, but he stalled her with a raised hand and a smile.

"Yes, Mrs Hudson, I know. But at least this time he came alone. There will be no more invasions, I promise you."

"So I should think!" Mrs Hudson declared as Holmes opened the telegram. I watched as his face became, if possible, paler than before.

"It is from Lestrade," he told me, crumpling the sheet of paper into a ball and springing to his feet with an energy I had not seen since before his illness. He vanished into his bedroom, blanket flying behind him like a cloak. "Hurry, Watson! We must leave immediately!"

I exchanged a baffled glance with Mrs Hudson, who shrugged and left the room. "Where to, Holmes?" I called.

He was banging drawers and wardrobe doors. "Harcourt House! Mr William Ravensley has been abducted!"

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**Usual disclaimer: Holmes, Watson and co do not belong to me. Doctor Who bits and bobs are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

* * *

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In little more than ten minutes we were in a cab on our way to Grosvenor Square.

"It seems that the earl has reconsidered his decision to dispense with your services," I remarked.

"I am hoping that he has finally come to his senses and decided to tell me exactly what occurred on Thursday night," Holmes said, to my surprise. "I have almost all the information – all that is needed is for Lord Harcourt to fill in the gaps."

"Thursday night? But we now have a new mystery!"

Holmes shook his head. "The only mystery here is why the earl did not destroy the statue while he had the chance, and save his family this misery."

We had barely entered the marble hall before Lestrade appeared, looking more than a little harassed.

"Thank you for coming so quickly, gentlemen," he said. "I'll admit I'm at a loss to understand this case at all. One minute I have the earl denying you access to the house, and the next he's fair demanding your presence! And I'm no closer to discovering who killed Lord James. Makes no sense to me!"

"It makes perfect sense," said Holmes. "The earl is a man much tried. Blackmail and threats play havoc with a man's nerves. Where is his lordship?"

"In the study. We have quite a little party here," the inspector told me as once more we trailed behind Holmes. "Seems there's much more to this than meets the eye."

"There usually is," I said, and we entered the study. Gathered there were Lord and Lady Harcourt, Lady Amanda Barrington, and Duncan, the earl's valet. The room was a positive mess, the display cabinet in shattered pieces on the floor, the furniture overturned, books torn from the shelves. The only items left standing appeared to be the chairs upon which the ladies sat.

The earl stood in the window embrasure, leaning upon the frame, his aspect that of a man defeated. Gone was the belligerence of two days before – as we entered he cast a glance our way that was not unlike the gaze of a drowning man sighting a life-belt. "Mr Holmes," he said, moving forwards to meet my friend amid the debris, "I cannot thank you enough for coming. I must apologise for my behaviour on Friday – it was reprehensible of me."

"Indeed it was, my lord, but I can forgive you. The accusations were an attempt to protect yourself and your family," Holmes replied. "I could, however, have assured you that you would have been equally secure had you confided in me."

Harcourt nodded. "I see that now. Mr Mycroft Holmes called me foolish, and he was quite correct. Had I not been, I would not have lost another son to these madmen."

The countess's eyes filled with tears, and she bit her lip, a far cry too from the woman we had met on Friday. Lady Amanda took her hand and held it tightly, her own face pale and drawn above her black mourning gown.

"Mr William Ravensley is not dead, and nor, I hope, will he be at any time in the near future." Holmes glanced around the room as though he had only just noticed the devastation, something I knew well to be an act. "I see you had visitors last night. They were not so circumspect this time."

The earl could not look at his ruined collection. "They came in search of something."

"That much is self evident. I take it that something was a small wooden hand, barely an inch long, holding an Egyptian symbol of life commonly known as an ankh?"

"Good God, Mr Holmes," said Harcourt, staring at my friend in amazement. "How did you know?"

"It was discovered in the palm of your son James's hand. He had tried to prevent the theft, only to lose his life in return," Holmes said.

"Ah, yes, I've been meaning to ask you about that, Mr Holmes - " Lestrade began, but Holmes cut him off.

"I presume that they are demanding the surrender of the hand before they will release your younger son," he said to Harcourt, who nodded again. "Why do they need it so badly?"

"It is a matter of belief, Mr Holmes," the earl replied. "Without the complete statue, their god will be unable to take corporeal form. It is an avatar, a true representation of Seth. There is, I believe, no other like it in existence."

"It is a hideous thing," the countess declared. "We should have sold it while we had the opportunity!"

"That would simply have transferred the burden to some other poor soul who did not know what awaited them," her husband responded with a touch of impatience. I sensed that this was an argument which had been gone through many times in the past.

She rounded on him. "At least we would have been free of it! Jamie would still be alive, and we would not have lived through such torment all these years! How could you put your obsession with that…that…_thing_ above the happiness of your family!" Her voice cracked and she broke into noisy weeping. Lady Amanda put an arm around her, rubbing the poor woman's back and murmuring soothing words. The girl was remarkably calm, considering the depth of her feelings for the missing man.

Holmes had listened to this exchange between husband and wife with a frown. He moved amongst the remains of the Egyptian collection which littered the carpet, reaching the window and perching casually upon the sill, as there were no more chairs in the room. "Lord Harcourt," he said when the countess had composed herself, "How long have you been plagued by the followers of Seth?"

The earl placed a hand upon his wife's shoulder. "Since this man Namin came to London some years ago. He made himself a nuisance, following me all over, turning up at my clubs, lingering outside the house. His diatribes quickly became wearing, and I attempted to have the police restrain him."

"And so they did do," said Lestrade, "but until a man commits a crime it's difficult to restrain him for long."

"I believe the British Museum have had a similar problem with him," I told the earl.

Harcourt nodded. "The constant harassment began to take its toll on my nerves. Where once I had encouraged study of the statue by interested academics, I could no longer take the risk of allowing strangers into the house to view it in case this man inveigled his way inside. I could think of nothing but the statue – it dominated my every waking moment. When James began to become vocal about his own fears, I could not deal with more worry."

"And so you quarrelled," said Holmes.

"I am not proud of the fact. But he would not let the matter drop, convinced that a curse was upon him. Such things are preposterous – we have had bad luck within the family, it is true, but those deaths were accidents, not murder! When he told me that an Egyptian was following him I could take no more, knowing that Namin had transferred his attentions to my son in the hope that he would have more success."

"Perhaps you should have taken your son into your confidence and revealed the demands that were being made upon you," I suggested.

"It is doubtful that he would have listened, Doctor," said the countess sadly. "He wanted one thing, and one thing only: the removal of the statue and thus of his own fears."

"He fairly demanded that I burn the statue that night in the grate," said Harcourt. "He would have done it himself had I not bodily prevented him from reaching the cabinet. What he could not understand was that the statue is a family heirloom, and I cannot dispose of my past so easily, no matter what the cost."

"Not to mention the threat of retribution hanging over your head," Holmes said. "At some point in the last few months the Egyptian ambassador visited you, did he not?"

"Have you been watching my movements as well, Mr Holmes?" asked the earl. When my friend did not reply, he continued, "Yes, and I was much surprised by the visit. He was very cordial, though not what I would have expected from such a dignitary, and he came with just one man – an official, I presumed. I did not see that I could refuse his request to see the statue of Seth, and we spoke for some time. He admired my collection."

"And asked you about the forthcoming eclipse."

Harcourt nodded. "I was shocked when barely a few days later he began to demand the return of the statue. It put me in an impossible position."

"They were turning up the heat. So," said Holmes, "on Thursday night, when they came to make their final demand for time was beginning to press upon them, what did you do?"

"I refused, as I have refused each time. They have money, but I have told them repeatedly that the statue is not for sale at any price. They became angry, issued threats – I myself threatened to summon the police, but they laughed in my face. As they left they proclaimed that Sutek would have his vengeance upon me for prolonging his unjust imprisonment. For my crimes, Sutek's gift of death would be visited upon me."

Lestrade looked baffled. "Is this another person I have to look for? Must be a rum cove with a name like Sutek!"

"He is indeed, but I doubt if you will catch him, Lestrade," said Holmes.

"Sutek is one of the many names given to this unpleasant god," I explained to the unfortunate inspector. "Set, Seth, Sutek, the Typhonian Beast…all refer to the same deity."

"Have you considered how they came to find you on the roof of the house?" Holmes asked Harcourt.

The earl looked astonished, and Lestrade's confusion increased.

"On the _roof_?" he squeaked incredulously.

"How in the world did you know that, Mr Holmes?" Harcourt exclaimed.

Holmes smiled slightly. "Architecture and observation, my lord. You are a keen astronomer – I have recently read your monograph, and found it fascinating."

"Thank you. I was indeed upon the roof that night, observing the moon. There is an eclipse due this very evening - "

" – which also happens to occur on the eve of one of the festival days of the god Seth. That fact is not unknown to you."

"I did my best to discount it, though I had guessed the reason for their timing," Harcourt admitted. "They came upon me suddenly, from where I know not unless they climbed one of the trees in the garden, and from there scaled the drainpipe. I sent them away, and they issued their threats."

"But they did not leave you immediately, as they observed the entrance to the secret stair."

There was a pause. Lady Harcourt looked at her husband in shock; Lady Amanda looked as confused as poor Lestrade. The earl bowed his head and nodded. "An oversight on my part, though the door was locked and bolted from within as always. But that did not stop them gaining entry to this room."

"That is because, on the first attempt at least, they did not use the staircase," said Holmes. He stood up and walked slowly through the litter on the carpet to the chimney breast. "The smaller of the two confederates, our false ambassador – or, to give him his real name, Nahir Naseem – climbed down the chimney itself. They had of course been watching the house, and knew that the chimney had been swept the day before. It is his footprint I found upon the carpet on Friday morning. He broke open the door that leads to the staircase – if you care to observe, Lestrade, you will see the marks made by the inexpert use of a lock pick." He gestured towards a door I had not even noticed, set beside the chimney and designed to blend in completely with the bookshelves. The keyhole was barely visible – only someone looking for it would know that it was there. As Lestrade took Holmes's glass and examined the lock, my friend continued, "He opened the door that leads onto the roof, allowing Namin to join him, and between them they gained access to the cabinet. It must have been while they were in the act of removing the statue that Lord James came upon them, letting himself into the study with his own key. There was a struggle – the statue's hand broke – and one of them, probably Namin, set the creature upon Lord James which would cause his death."

The countess stifled a gasp and her eyes filled with tears once more. "He was trying to protect your accursed statue!" she told her husband.

"My apologies, Lady Harcourt, but I do find that unlikely. Why should Lord James seek to retain an object for which he felt such revulsion?" said Lestrade, grasping this part of the conversation at least.

"I think we may assume that at the crucial moment Lord James surrendered to instinct and sought to protect his family's property," Holmes countered. "Destroying the statue himself may have been acceptable, but to have it simply taken by two men who had broken into the house is not likely to have sat well with him."

"So they killed him," said Lady Amanda softly. "He would not have been able to stop them – I doubt if Jamie had ever fired a gun in anger in his life."

"I do find it curious that he was the only one to awaken when the thieves made their entrance," mused Holmes, leaning against the bookshelves and regarding his stick as he idly held it before him. "The rain that Lady Amanda heard on the roof can be explained as the miscreants taking flight, but someone surely must have heard the man descending the chimney."

"We all had rather too much to drink that night, Mr Holmes," said Harcourt, "hence tempers running high. Jamie was always a light sleeper, and frequently found that reading aided him in that respect. I assume that he was awake and intending to retrieve a book from the library when he heard them."

"Was it his habit to keep a loaded revolver in his bedroom?" enquired Lestrade.

"Of late, I can believe it. He was becoming dreadfully fearful," said the countess. "We should have listened to him." She dabbed at her eyes again. I marvelled at her ability to keep her composure on Friday morning, and put it down to the shock of what had just occurred.

"Now," Holmes announced after a suitable pause for everyone to take this in, "We come to Friday morning. You, Lord Harcourt, when summoned to the study discovered the door leading to the secret stair ajar, the thieves naturally unable to lock the door behind them without wasting valuable time. They did, however, take Lord James's key to the study, presumably as insurance should they need to return. The door was not open when Lestrade arrived to investigate, or he would certainly have mentioned it. Therefore there can only be one reason why it was closed: that you closed it yourself, my lord, to hide its existence."

Harcourt opened his mouth, but before he could speak Duncan, the valet, cut across him. "I closed and locked the door, sir. It's his lordship's private business, no need for the police to know about it."

Lestrade rounded on the man. "No need? I'll have you know, my man, that we call such an act withholding evidence, and it carried serious penalties!"

"We had no choice," said Harcourt. "Duncan found a note pushed into the keyhole, promising retribution if we said anything about Namin and his confederate to the police. I had just seen what they did to my son, they possessed a way to enter the house…I had to do all I could to protect my family. However, by the time the note was found I had already despatched William to Mr Mycroft Holmes. I could not tell the full story for fear of what they would do when they discovered my actions, and so when you arrived, Mr Holmes, I did my best to put you off the scent. It was done for the best of reasons, though I am not proud of my actions."

"I understand," Holmes said, "but, had you told me the truth, your son might not now be in danger."

"I know it, Mr Holmes, I know it," said the unhappy peer.

"What now, Mr Holmes?" Lestrade asked, still quite obviously itching to arrest Duncan, who stared at him defiantly.

"We can do nothing until tonight," my friend replied, "so we must wait."

"Tonight? Would it not be more prudent to go and arrest them now?"

"And find the statue gone, the birds flown? No, Lestrade, that would never do. Tonight is when their plans will come together. When the sun and the moon are in their correct alignment, then we shall have them."

"Sun and moon? Are you feeling quite all right, Mr Holmes?" said the inspector, giving Holmes a concerned glance as though he feared the detective to have quite suddenly run mad.

"Astronomy, Lestrade."

Lestrade shook his head. "I'll take you word for it, but I'll have you know that I've never made an arrest based on the phases of the moon before!"

Holmes smiled. "In that case, Lestrade, I believe I can promise you something rather special."

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

**Many thanks once again for those kind reviews! I'm glad you're all enjoying it. :)**

**Interestingly (or possibly not), my first proper introduction to Holmes and Watson was in a _Doctor Who_ novel called _All Consuming Fire, _in which they investigated a rather preposterous case alongside the Doctor and his companion Professor Bernice Summerfield. They turned up again later in another of the series, _Happy Endings_, which I think characterised them better, though taking them to the future may not have been entirely wise...**

**Anyway, onwards and upwards, as Mr Brett would say...**

* * *

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER TWELVE

"But, Mr Holmes – what about Will?" said Lady Amanda. "We cannot leave him with those men!"

"I have no doubt that as long as they believe they will get what they want, Mr William Ravensley will remain unharmed," Holmes assured her, though his words did little to soothe.

"We do not have the object they desire, Mr Holmes," the countess said, glancing at her husband, who nodded. "They have threatened violence, and after what happened to Jamie - "

"I do not believe that Lord Amsworth's death was premeditated, ma'am. He surprised them, and in their view they had no choice but to despatch him. This situation is a little different. Lord Harcourt - " Holmes turned to the earl " – you will, if you please, reply to their demands telling them that - " He stopped, thinking furiously. "At what time is the eclipse to reach its apex?"

"Between ten o'clock and midnight tonight," Harcourt replied, a little confused.

"In that case, you will tell them that you will bring the hand to the side entrance of the British Museum at five minutes to ten this evening. Tell them that you will only give them the object if it is made clear that your son has not been harmed. They want the statue complete; they will not take chances."

"And what shall I do when I cannot produce the hand?" the earl asked.

"You will not be there. I think that you may safely leave the confrontation to ourselves and Inspector Lestrade," Holmes said. "There is no need for you to put yourself in danger."

We left shortly afterwards, Holmes stopping to give Lestrade further instructions. I did not hear the nature of them, trying as I was to allay the fears of the countess and Lady Amanda, but the inspector looked puzzled as he agreed to the proposals. I did wonder how we were going to gain access to the museum under the noses of the night watchmen, but Holmes dismissed my concern.

"They have bribed the watchmen to be absent, thus clearing the way for us all. A telegram to Bretherton should give us all we need."

The rest of the short journey home was conducted in silence, and I knew better than to disturb Holmes when he was thinking. After a stop at the telegraph office to wire Bretherton we walked the few hundred yards back to 221B, and were nearly at the front door when Holmes said suddenly,

"There is one part of this matter which still eludes me: this mysterious friend of yours, the doctor with no name who leaves cryptic messages."

"I can assure you, I do not count him as a friend!" I said, rather amused by the idea.

"He knows what is happening, and yet he remains elusive. I have made enquiries, and the Irregulars have scoured London, and we can find no trace of the man. He and his companion quite plainly do not exist."

"That is not true," I objected, "I spoke to the girl only yesterday."

"And yet the fact remains that they cannot be found anywhere. When she left you yesterday, Charlie followed her – he told me that she vanished into thin air at the bottom of Orchard Street," Holmes said in evident annoyance.

"That is impossible."

"Precisely. But there it stands." He growled, pulling his house keys from his pocket. As he did, there was a shout from two doors down – I turned to see Charlie himself running towards us, waving his grubby cap in the air. Holmes stopped, one foot on the doorstep, as the little lad came to an abrupt halt in front of us, unable to say any more because his sprint had taken his breath.

"I seen 'er, Mr 'Olmes!" he said eventually, between gasps. "She were down in Oxford Street!"

"Who? The girl you followed yesterday?" Holmes asked, his keys slipping back into his pocket. "What was she doing?"

"Just walkin', lookin' round like she'd never been ter London before. I knew you wanted to know where she went, so I followed 'er again."

"Good lad. Where did she go?"

"Back up Orchard Street, where I seen 'er yesterday, but this time I saw sumfink that weren't there before," Charlie said. He stood up straight and pulled his cap back into place. "If you can come wiv me now, I'll show yer."

I looked at Holmes, wondering what on earth the boy was talking about. My friend smiled. "Very well, it's not far. Lead on, Charlie!"

"Holmes, should we really be spying on the girl in this manner?" I asked as we followed the lad back the way we had come. "It does not seem right to me."

"My dear Watson, you are letting your weakness for the fair sex override your judgement," he said. "Have you no curiosity about these people? They are quite clearly involved in the Harcourt case in some way, and yet they keep to the shadows, careful not to reveal their identities. There must be a reason for it, and I mean to know what it is, if only to prove their influence to be benign."

I blinked in surprise. "Surely you do not believe them to be a threat!"

He shrugged. "I have no data, and therefore no opinion as yet. But I do not like men who send messages rather than calling in person."

I had to concede that he did have a point. Orchard Street was not far, just past the junction of Wigmore Street and Portman Square. Charlie had run on ahead, but returned, his little face scrunched up in concern when we were forced to stop for a moment to allow Holmes, his face grey once more, to rest. He waved aside the lad's questions with a smile, but Charlie did not lose his worried expression. I marvelled anew at the devotion his rag-tag little band had for Holmes.

"Is this it?" my friend asked breathlessly as we crossed the street. On the corner of Orchard and Wigmore Streets stood a peculiar tall, blue cabinet. Though the sign above the door proclaimed it to be a 'police box', a rather irate constable was standing on the pavement demanding an explanation of passers-by.

"Weren't there yesterday," said Charlie confidently, "but that's where the girl disappeared, that exact same spot."

"What the devil can it be?" I wondered. I had seen nothing like it in my life.

"A cabinet of some kind, I would think," Holmes replied, moving a little closer. "Good morning, constable."

The police officer jumped at being accosted from behind, but relaxed when he turned and saw us. "Mr Holmes! Do you know who might have left this box here, sir? I confess I'm at my wits' end."

"Has it just been abandoned?" Holmes enquired, laying a gloved hand on the box's painted door.

"Suddenly appeared overnight, it did. No one's been back to it, at least not since I've been here and I was alerted at six." The constable scratched his head, pushing his helmet askew. "Who would do something like that? It's causing an obstruction, too - "

"Someone with access to some heavy-lifting equipment, that much is obvious. This is no temporary structure." Holmes pushed on the door, at first gently and then with more forced, but it refused to budge under the pressure. He drew himself up to his full, impressive height and attempted to see through the windows but they were of frosted glass and evidently revealed little.

"Is has nothing to do with the police, then?" I asked

"I should say not, Doctor," the constable responded, as if the very idea were anathema to him. "What would we be doing with a box? It don't go nowhere, and I can't even see that there's a handle on the door so you couldn't store nothing in there."

Holmes had been examining a panel which was printed with lettering I could not make out from where I stood. He was smiling slightly, as though at a private joke. "A conundrum indeed," he said.

The constable's face fell. "You mean you don't know what it is, sir?"

"Sadly, I do not. But I doubt that anyone can move it without resorting to extreme force so you had better leave it where it is. Who knows, perhaps it may vanish as abruptly as it appeared."

I followed Holmes as he turned back up the street, Charlie at his heels. "Holmes - " I began, but he held up a hand.

"Mysterious men in scarves and mysterious blue boxes, Watson. Might the two not be connected?"

"Why would anyone deposit a box on a street corner and then leave it? The idea is preposterous!"

Holmes smiled again "That is not for me to say, but let us chalk it up as yet another singular feature of this most unusual case," he said, and I could not help but agree.

The next few hours of waiting were agonising.

With the end of the case in sight, Holmes seemed suddenly infused with an energy which battled against his weakness leaving neither one the absolute victor. He paced the sitting room, restlessly scraping upon his violin until I could take no more and begged him to put it away. I could see the logic in Lestrade's suggestion that the thieves should be apprehended before they could put whatever they were planning into execution, but I also knew that Holmes could never resist a touch of the dramatic when such an opportunity presented itself and resigned myself to the nervous torment.

Mrs Hudson archly enquired whether we would be wanting our Sunday luncheon as we returned to the house, but neither of us felt able to eat much. Holmes touched little, and sat curled in his chair, smiling at something I did not like to ask him about.

My nerves were tangled in anticipation of the evening's events. I had no idea what I should expect, though I was not surprised when Holmes charged me to bring my old army revolver, so useful on countless past adventures.

At nine o'clock there was a knock at the door, and a worried-looking Bretherton was announced. He entered the room turning his hat nervously in his hands.

"I am really not sure about this, Holmes," he began, "To enter the museum after hours in such a manner - "

Holmes naturally waved the objection away. "Your assistance will be invaluable, my dear fellow. If nothing else you will remove a major nuisance from your galleries."

The curator stared at him for a moment before he realised what Holmes meant. "You mean that Namin - ? This is to do with that statue you were asking about?"

"It is indeed. We may see one or two mysteries explained this evening." Holmes opened his desk drawer and removed a revolver and bullets. He loaded the gun as he spoke. "That is my intention, at least."

Bretherton now stared at the gun with wide eyes. "You are expecting violence?"

"It is as well to be prepared."

"These people have more than mere theft to their name," I said. "Murder and abduction come easily to them."

"Good God," muttered the curator, blanching. I did not like the look of him at all.

"Holmes, maybe we should leave this to Lestrade," I said, but Holmes shook his head.

There was another knock at the front door, and his eyes lit up. "That will be our four-wheeler. Come, gentlemen."

He left the room with a spring in his step for the first time in weeks, alive with the thrill of the chase. We were about to run our quarry to ground.

The half hour was being struck by the clock on a nearby church tower as we arrived at the British Museum. Holmes led us to the side entrance, stopping to carefully check the door.

"Locked," he reported as he returned to my side. "They are taking no chances of being disturbed."

"There is no sign of Lestrade," I said. The street was quiet, and the inspector and his men were conspicuous by their absence.

Holmes looked around, his sharp eyes taking in far more than mine ever could, not hampered by the odd reddish lamplight in the least. "We still have time," was all he would say on the matter.

With still twenty minutes until the proposed assignation, we secreted ourselves behind a wall on the opposite side of the street and settled down to wait. The rain had begun again, its light drizzle soaking into my coat and causing me to shiver uncomfortably. I glanced at Holmes to see him hunch into his own overcoat, his scarf pulled up around his face. He should not have been out in such weather, and I cursed myself once more for allowing him to see the case through to its conclusion, even though I knew in my heart of hearts that I could not have stopped him.

The minutes ticked by, but still Lestrade did not appear. My apprehension grew. It was one thing to face these men with a police presence, but quite another for the three of us (one unarmed and an innocent party to the whole affair) to take on a group of deadly fanatics.

As the clock chimed the quarter hour, I heard Holmes grinding his teeth in frustration.

"What now?" I whispered.

"They must come out and show the lad is safe and well," he replied quietly. "There are three of us and only two of them. They will be startled to see us instead of Harcourt – in the confusion we should be able to take them."

"Only two that we know of, Holmes! They could have any number of followers in there!" My tension ratcheted up another notch. Had he not completely thought this through? I could not reconcile this shoddy planning with my usually meticulous friend. "You have surely considered that possibility?"

"Of course!" he snapped.

"Then what - "

"Lestrade will arrive."

"Holmes - "

"I confess I do not like the sound of this at all, Holmes," Bretherton hissed from the other side of my friend.

"My dear fellow, you have no reason to stay. It was foolish of me to have brought you with us," said Holmes, now showing perception only at this late stage. What was wrong with him? "Though it will weigh the odds more evenly, if you leave me the keys I have no objection to your retiring."

I held my breath as Bretherton considered the offer for some moments before finally shaking his head. "You will get lost in the museum without my guidance."

I could not read Holmes's expression in the shadows, but I knew that he was smiling. "Good man," he said, and his response confirmed my view that he was not himself. Had he been acting normally, he would have sent the curator away, refused to allow him to risk his life in so cavalier a fashion. There was little I could do about it now, however, much to my distress.

Instead I checked my watch. "Holmes, it is five to ten."

"Still no Lestrade. Damn the man!"

"It is unlike him to be unreliable. At what time did you tell him to meet us here?"

Holmes ignored my question. "There is nothing we can do now. Make ready, gentlemen."

On the other side of the street, the door was opening.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

**We're nearing the end now...only a couple more chapters left!**

**Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson do not belong to me, much as I would like them to. Neither do the Doctor Who elements used in this story, which are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

* * *

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Beside me, Holmes tensed.

My hand immediately went to the revolver in my pocket, an instinct born of long experience. The door opened, and a figure stepped out under the lamp – I recognised Namin, dapper in pinstripes and spats as he had been when first I saw him in Baker Street. It had only been three days, and yet it felt so much longer. He looked around, frowning, and said something I could not make out to someone hidden behind him in the shadow of the doorway.

I felt rather than saw Holmes getting to his feet, but before any of us could move far there were hurried footsteps upon the pavement and a small man in a top hat approached, hastening towards the door. Namin smiled in satisfaction, and I realised the newcomer's identity.

"How delightful to see you again, my lord," said the Egyptian, leaving the doorway and strolling across to meet Lord Harcourt. "I take it that you have brought the sacred relic as instructed?"

Holmes was quivering with anger. "What the devil is that man doing?" he hissed. "He will ruin everything!"

"I wish to see my son," the earl said, the arrogance I recalled from our first encounter back in his voice. "You will show me that he is unharmed."

"All in good time, my lord." Namin smiled. "You must show us the relic before we do any kind of business."

"Business?" I could not see Harcourt's face from my position, but the naked fury that now overtook arrogance in the peer's voice was plain to all. "You break into my house; steal my property; kill my son, and you expect negotiate terms with me?" he exclaimed. "How _dare_ you, sir!"

This speech had little effect upon Namin. He threw back his head and laughed, the sound ringing from the nearby buildings. "You are an insect, my lord, of no account whatsoever in the new order we will create. The Dark Lord has no use for a creature such as you."

"You are completely insane," breathed Harcourt, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agreed.

"And you have broken the law," said Holmes. He had risen without my noticing, so intent had I been upon the exchange between Namin and the earl, and was already crossing the street. "You have a catalogue of crimes to your name, _Mr_ Namin, no doubt all performed in the name of your Dark Lord, but we sadly cannot call him to account for them."

Namin cocked his head to one side, observing my friend with interest as I hurried to catch him up, hearing Bretherton following. "And you are a policeman? I confess my surprise – you do not look like one."

"My name is Sherlock Holmes – it may or may not mean something to you. I am here to tell you that the game is up. I know your intentions and it will not work."

"You claim knowledge of the future, then, Mr Holmes?" the Egyptian enquired in evident amusement.

"I can see your immediate future," Holmes replied.

"As can I. And it does not involve a trip to the police station. The All Powerful has reserved me for greater things." Namin's voice hardened. "Give me the relic, Lord Harcourt."

"Show me my son," said the earl defiantly.

"As I said before – the relic first. Do not try to trick us, my lord. It will do neither you nor your son any good."

"Mr William Ravensley is no use to you dead," Holmes said. "What harm is there in showing us that he is alive and well?"

"I will show nothing to you, Mr Holmes," Namin snapped. "This is not your affair. If you leave now there will be no consequences foe either you or your friends. But if you try to stop us - "

Holmes barked a laugh, much to my astonishment. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"

The Egyptian glared at him. "You may believe whatever you choose. But we are wasting time – the hour of the Dark Lord's resurrection approaches." He glanced at the sky, and as I followed his gaze I realised that the clouds had parted, revealing the moon and the shadow that was beginning to pass over its surface, staining it a deep, blood red. The colour of Seth. Namin held out a hand, his expression now set. In his other, which he removed from the pocket of his jacket, he held a revolver. "The sacred relic, Lord Harcourt. I will not ask you again."

I held my breath, knowing that the earl did not have the hand and so had no chance of surrendering it. Holmes had not shared his plans with me, and the very fact of Harcourt's presence when he had been specifically told to stay at home complicated matters.

There was a long pause. Namin looked from the earl to Holmes and back again. Harcourt looked at Holmes, but my friend remained impassive. At length a voice issued from behind the half-open door, speaking in a language I could not understand. Whatever the words, the tone was urgent. Namin barked something in reply.

"Do not play games with me," he said, training the gun on Holmes. "Where is the hand of Sutek?"

To my amazement, Holmes's own revolver was nowhere to be seen. I brought mine up, fixing my sights on Namin. "It is in my pocket," Holmes said calmly. The Egyptian stared at him. "Bring William Ravensley here now, or I promise you that I will destroy your sacred relic. Where will your resurrection be then?"

The words momentarily stopped Namin in his tracks, but he recovered swiftly. With a wordless cry he flew at Holmes – I reacted first, pushing my friend aside and letting off a shot that went wild, hitting the stone cornice above Namin's head.

"You will not stop the descent of the All Powerful Sutek!" he cried, turning his gun upon me. In his haste and excitement, his fingers fumbled on the trigger and he misfired even as I moved quickly out of range, the powder scorching his hand. The revolver fell to the floor and I shouted at Bretherton to retrieve it – the curator hesitated, and before anyone could stop him Namin had vanished and the door slammed shut behind him.

I picked up the fallen gun and handed it to Bretherton. The curator took it reluctantly, and I went to help Holmes to his feet. He was winded from the impact with the pavement, trying to get his breath back. I did not like the sound of his wheezing at all, but could do nothing about it as the moment he was upright he turned furiously upon Lord Harcourt, demanding to know what he thought he was doing.

"Did I, or did I not, my lord, give you strict instructions to remain at home this evening?"

"I had to try and save my son," the earl said simply, apparently unmoved by Holmes's anger – a remarkable achievement.

"That was exactly what I was trying to accomplish! Now you may have signed his death warrant." Holmes looked around him. "Where in God's name is Lestrade?"

"Shall I fetch him?" I suggested, even though I knew that the journey to Scotland Yard and back would waste time we did not have.

He shook his head sharply. "No, it would take too long. Bretherton, we need to get inside."

The curator nodded, withdrawing a bunch of keys from his pocket. He approached the door a little nervously – I stood at his shoulder with my revolver, and gave him an encouraging glance. If there was someone waiting behind the door we would be ready for them.

Bretherton inserted a key into the lock, but it would not turn. He tried a different key, but the same thing happened. He shook his head and tried to insert the first key again, but it would not fit the lock. "This is extremely odd. I know that this is the correct key!"

"They have locked it from the inside and left the key in the lock." Holmes knelt to examine the keyhole, but could see little in the moonlight. "No gap under the door big enough to remove it that way…could the door be broken down?"

"Not without some kind of battering ram," I said, trying my weight against it. The wood was solid, and could withstand a considerable siege. No doubt the main doors were twice as strong.

"Is there another way in?" Holmes asked.

Bretherton considered. "There is the door used by the watchmen, but I do not have the key."

I saw my friend's eyes glitter in anticipation. He smiled grimly. "That may not be necessary. Lead on."

"What should I do?" asked Harcourt.

Holmes did not even look at him, incredible rudeness even by his standards. I could understand the earl's actions, even if I could not excuse them. He had been trying to save his son – what father would not have made the attempt? "Wait here for the police," Holmes snapped, "and please do not attempt to do anything else. It will be neither wise nor useful."

He left the poor man on the pavement, open-mouthed with either indignation or astonishment. Bretherton led us around the back of the building, down a deserted alley, and to a partially-concealed door. I was unsurprised to find that Holmes had pocketed his lock picks before we left Baker Street, and it did not take him long to obtain entrance via the watchmen's door. Once we were inside I was not sure whether to be relieved – I had been concerned that the shots fired would bring a constable down on us – or anxious. I kept my hand on my gun.

Bretherton had been correct when he said that we would become lost in the building without him. We followed him with the aid of Holmes's dark lantern through a maze of winding passages, past offices and store rooms, before we reached the public areas and the galleries.

"Where will they be?" Bretherton asked nervously.

"The Egyptian sculpture gallery is a distinct possibility," Holmes replied, taking the lead now that he recognised his surroundings. "There are plenty of altars for them to utilise."

Sure enough, as we neared the gallery (which was on the ground floor due to the combined weight of its contents), I could hear the sound of chanting. The words were in a foreign tongue, but the rhythm of the voices was enough to send a chill down my spine.

"How many of them are there?" Bretherton wondered.

Holmes was listening intently. "At least six. Certainly no more than ten. More than I expected."

"Whichever way, we are hopelessly outnumbered," I said, dread stirring in the pit of my stomach. "We must leave."

"We will do nothing of the sort, Watson."

"Holmes, to stay is madness! We should go back outside and wait for Lestrade. There is no sense in getting ourselves killed!" I exclaimed, and he immediately hissed for silence.

"I have no intention of letting those men do whatever it is they intend to do," he snapped. "Lestrade or no, I will see them brought to justice."

I stared at him in amazement. Never before had he made such a complete and utter error of judgement. In that moment, seeing his glittering eyes fixed on me in the dim light, I knew that he had taken the drug that afternoon, perhaps even as late as a little before Bretherton's arrival. It was the cocaine talking, telling him he could do things that were patently impossible, even for him.

"At what time did you tell Lestrade to meet us here?" I demanded in a low voice, recalling how he had ignored the question earlier. "Tell me, Holmes!"

His eyes widened in surprise, and then he scowled at me. "I told him to be here in good time," he said evasively.

"You cannot remember, can you? That wretched drug had addled your brain!" I was aware of Bretherton watching us in astonishment, but I was not about to let this pass. "You have led us all into danger! And after the conversation we had last night…all because you would not drop this _damned_ case!"

"This case is all that has kept me going over the last few days," Holmes countered furiously. "Without it I would have - "

"I don't want to hear it," I said. "To have brought me into this is bad enough, but to have involved Bretherton is unforgivable! We are leaving. Now." I turned, and immediately felt Holmes's hand on my shoulder, spinning me round to face him.

"We cannot walk away from this!" he hissed. "To have come this far - "

I shook my head. "No, Holmes. You cannot see the folly of this, but I can. Leave it to the police."

"The police are not here!"

_And whose fault is that?_ I wanted to cry, but did not, mainly because I would have been repeating myself, but also because I had at that moment noticed, ominously, that the chanting had stopped.

Bretherton looked anxiously towards the doorway that led to the sculpture gallery. Holmes, ignoring me now, hurried over. I followed, wondering exactly when the voices had ceased, and whether their owners had heard our discussion.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

**The penultimate chapter... thank you once again for all your wonderful reviews!**

**Disclaimer: Holmes and Watson do not belong to me, sadly. Neither do various _Doctor Who_ elements which are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

* * *

THE HAND OF SETH

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

My immediate inclination was to head for the door through which we had come and leave the building as quickly as possible.

The absence of the chanting somehow sent a chill down my spine more certainly than the voices themselves had done. I ignored the impulse and crossed as stealthily as I could to Holmes's side, peering round him to see what was happening in the room beyond. I could make out little besides the flickering of flaming torches and several figures in black robes clustered beneath a huge granite statue. As I watched through a haze of smoke, the figures spread out, revealing one of their number on his knees before the statue, his arms folded across his chest in some form of supplication.

"Oh, Dread and All Powerful Sutek, hear your instrument," the kneeling individual, whom I recognised as Namin, intoned. "We are gathered to await your presence. All is prepared for your descent. All Powerful and Mighty Sutek join us, your servants. Come among us and take this world we offer you."

I am not sure quite what I was expecting to happen, but I certainly was not prepared for the words to provoke a reaction. When a disembodied voice floated through the marble-floored chamber, I swear I felt my blood run cold.

"Who disturbs Sutek?" the voice demanded; a sibilant hiss almost as one might imagine a snake would sound had it been given the power of speech. It drifted through the room, touching everything with a faint air of malevolence. There is something far more deadly about a man who speaks quietly and means ill than one who shouts and screams. The hairs rose on the back of my neck.

"It is I, Lord, your humble servant Ibrahim Namin. I have done all that you asked of me."

"It…pleases me to now that the moment of my deliverance is so close at hand. You know what you must do now?"

Namin nodded, and leaned forwards to place something upon the stone altar before him. He bent, his forehead touching the floor, before straightening once more. As he did, I could see that it was the statue of Seth that stood there. It had been discussed so many times that I confess even having seen the photographs my mind had built it into something more impressive than it actually was. All I could see was a small, crude wooden figure. Despite my anxiety, it came as something of a disappointment.

"See this offering, oh mighty Sutek. Draw from its sacred power!" Namin declared, throwing his arms wide.

There was a pause. In the resulting silence I was acutely aware of my own breathing and that of Holmes beside me. I glanced up to see him standing stock still against the wall, eyes never leaving the strange tableau before us.

At length, when the waiting had become almost intolerable, the mysterious voice came again. This time, there was very definite menace held within it.

"Namin, you are a false servant," it said.

Namin stared at the statue, bewildered. It may have been the shifting light from the torches, but I could have sworn that the shadow thrown against the granite sculpture had changed shape, grown into something not quite…human. "I, Lord? I am your most humble and obedient - "

"You have failed. The statue is not complete. I cannot transfer unless the lodestone is intact!" The voice rose ever so slightly in pitch. "Where is the hand?"

"I – I could not find it, Lord. We tried - " Namin stammered.

"You know where the hand lies, Namin. You will obtain it. You will complete the lodestone."

"I – I - "

"You will!" the voice thundered. "You _must_!"

Namin's face was panic-stricken as he turned towards us – he gestured desperately across the room, to the circle of cloaked brethren who stood there. As he did I caught sight of one of the tall windows – the glass was tinged a deep, deep red.

There was a sharp intake of breath from beside me, and as I watched a commotion began amongst the cloaked figures. They drew apart and two of them dragged the dishevelled form of the Honourable William Ravensley forwards. The lad was white was fear, struggling desperately.

"Bring him here," Namin commanded.

Ravensley's eyes widened as he caught sight of the altar, and his struggles began anew. One of the men holding him struck him a glancing blow across the forehead and he subsided, going limp in their arms.

"What is this?" demanded the voice. I looked wildly around the room. Where the devil was it coming from?

"He knows where the Hand of Sutek is hidden. He will tell us!" Namin insisted.

Again that most pregnant pause, as though the very air was holding its breath. I could not help joining it. I wondered what Holmes could be planning. To take on that many would be utter madness, as I had told him, and yet what good would we possibly do hiding where we were? I hoped fervently that my friend would have some scheme, and that his drug-induced confidence had not caused him to bring us here with no plans at all.

"He can tell you nothing, cretin," the voice hissed. "He does not know where the hand lies."

Namin's look of bafflement returned. "But, I - "

"You are an insect, Namin. I could crush you with the merest thought, or keep you alive in excruciating pain as I devised ever more ingenious and subtle means of torture." There appeared to be some kind of amusement in the voice now, and I imagined that whoever might be providing it was taking great pleasure from the charade. I tried once more to discern where the voice was coming from, but it seemed to be all around me.

Namin fell to his knees. "Please, All Powerful Sutek, please spare your humble, faithful servant. I have done all that you asked of me and more, I do not deserve your displeasure - "

"How dare you seek to bargain with Sutek! Insect! Microbe! You are of no importance."

"Lord, I - "

"There is one here who does know," the voice continued, "and he has the hand in his possession. You will retrieve the hand, Namin."

For a long moment, Namin stood frozen before the altar. Then, quite slowly, he stood, turning towards the doorway and the spot in which we crouched. The brethren turned as one, and my heart leapt into my throat.

Namin was looking straight at Holmes.

An unpleasant smile swept over his face.

"Mr Holmes," he said, "I might have guessed. You seem determined to interfere." His voice hardened. "Give me the hand."

Holmes took a step forwards, one hand going to his waistcoat pocket. Before he withdrew it, however, he shook his head. "No. I think I shan't."

An angry shutter slid down across Namin's features. "I warned you before: do not play games with me. You do not understand the powers you meddle with. I can crush you."

"That I seriously doubt. I will make a bargain with you – release Mr Ravensley, and I will consider giving you the hand."

"A bargain?" Namin burst out laughing. "What sort of bargain is this?" He gestured to the four hooded men standing behind him, and from within the folds of their robes I could see gun barrels glinting in the light from the wavering torches. "No more stalling, Mr Holmes. Give me the relic. I will give you five seconds. Five - "

"This relic, as you call it, no more belongs to you than does the rest of the statue," Holmes told him. He was quite calm, even in the face of such overwhelming odds. I could not tell whether his incredible self-control had taken charge or if the bravado was due entirely to the cocaine. "If you let Mr Ravensley go and return the statue to its owner, I may ask the police to take the action into account when charging you."

"Namin, I grow impatient," hissed the voice. "The moment of transference approaches – I can wait no longer. _Kill them_!"

"No! That's exactly what he wants!" shouted a new voice from the other side of the gallery. Recognising its commanding tone, I dared to turn my head to see, beyond the hooded men, the mysterious Doctor, Sarah at his side. "He revels in death! Destruction will only make his transference all the easier!"

"More interference!" The disembodied voice was still measured, but there was more than a little anger and impatience there now. "Namin, take the hand. The release of Sutek is all that matters. Crush these insects!"

"Move a muscle and I'll destroy the lodestone," said the Doctor. Despite his ridiculous appearance, scarf trailing on the marble floor, there was determination in his face and manner. Here was a man who meant exactly what he said. "Which is it to be, Sutek?" he called to the room at large.

"The hand, Namin! Take the hand! The will of Sutek must survive!"

For a moment, all stood as though frozen. The, quite suddenly, Namin launched himself at Holmes with a roar, knocking my friend to the ground. I turned to help him but found myself unable to move, my arms pinioned by one of the cowled brethren who had come round behind me with the speed of lightning. I struggled, trying to free my right hand and my revolver, but the fellow was incredibly strong, hands more like iron than living flesh. The fingers that held me were like a vice, and I saw that I would be powerless to help Holmes, who was fighting valiantly as he grappled with Namin but at so much less than his usual strength. A gun barrel hovered before my eyes and I thought myself lost…

There was the sound of an impact and I barely registered I was free until the man holding me abruptly crumpled, releasing his hold. Startled, I turned to see Bretherton standing behind me, a stone statue held high in wavering hands, having apparently just brought it down upon the head of my captor. Such a blow would have shattered the fellow's skull, but I had no time to check as the next moment the curator had spun and struck the looming figure with the pistol as it closed in upon us. The cloaked individual fell without a sound, the gun clattering on the polished floor. I scooped it up, breathlessly thanking Bretherton.

He looked at the statue, ironically one of the falcon Horus, Seth's great enemy, ruefully. "I do hope I've not damaged it," he said.

There was a great noise coming from the other side of the room, the Doctor's voice booming out some warning or other coupled with Sarah's raised in alarm. The smoke coming from the torches hid them from my sight – I instinctively turned my attention to Holmes.

As I neared, Namin apparently doing his best to throttle the life out of him, my friend was obviously flagging, his weakened state robbing him of his usual stamina and skill in a fight. I held the pistol ready, aiming it squarely at Namin's back. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could Holmes curled his body upwards, his feet pushing against Namin's belly. With one great burst of strength he kicked out, propelling the Egyptian quite six feet to hit the floor hard, fetching up against a stone sarcophagus.

"Doctor!" Bretherton shouted, and I swung round just in time to drop into a crouch as one of the cultists rushed at me. He flew over my head, and I righted myself, putting a bullet into his shoulder before he could stand. Strangely, he slumped back on the marble without even a grunt of pain.

"Hurry, Doctor!"

For a moment I thought that the girl Sarah was calling for me, but as the air cleared for a moment I saw that her words were encouragement for her friend, who had managed to get close to the statue, the brethren either out of action or occupied elsewhere. Smoke seemed to be rising from it, mingling with that from the blazing torches. I coughed involuntarily. Somewhere above us the strange voice was screaming in impotent rage, unable to do anything to stop the destruction of the cult's plans. I wondered whether, if I rounded the great granite statue of a long-dead pharaoh, I might find a man crouched there with some means of amplifying his voice. I had seen such things accomplished by stage illusionists in the past. But if the man was there, why did he not assist his confederates? Why continue with the charade as chaos erupted around him? And what was the charade _for_?

I had no time to even attempt to discover the answers to my questions. Holmes had managed to stand and now leaned against the wall, his face chalk white, trying to regain his breath. I hurried towards him, and did not notice Namin getting painfully to his feet until it was too late. The Egyptian barrelled into me, knocking me aside and lunging for Holmes once more. His momentum carried them into the bracket supporting one of the torches, presumably used under normal circumstances for a lamp, and the whole thing came down with them, hitting the floor with a terrible crash.

I picked myself up, but my revolver had fallen from my hand and was nowhere to be seen. Not waiting to try and find it or retrieve the cultist's pistol from my pocket, I put my youthful prowess on the rugby pitch into rather rusty practise and launched myself at Namin, grabbing him around the middle in a creditable tackle. He struggled like a madman, trying to throw me off and catching me under the chin with a flailing fist, but despite tasting blood in my mouth I held on with grim determination.

"Sarah! Where are you going?" I heard the Doctor shout somewhere behind me.

"To get something!" There was a scrabbling sound on the marble not far away, and then the sharp click of a gun being cocked. I knew immediately that Sarah had found my fallen revolver.

"Sarah?" There was mild alarm in the Doctor's voice now.

"Cover your ears," she ordered.

"No…what are you doing?" cried the disembodied voice, its measured tone lost, risen in anxiety.

A shot rang out, echoing all around the gallery, and the voice escalated into a scream.

"_What have you done_?!"

"Take cover!" the Doctor yelled, as a moment later my ears popped and everything suddenly went black.

I came round with a terrible whistling in my ears.

For a panicked moment I thought that I might have been deafened, but as I regained my senses I realised that the whistling was in fact coming from Lestrade, arrived at last and summoning his men as he surveyed the wreckage of the sculpture gallery with wide eyes. Several constables were already picking their way through the dust and chunks of stone to where the black-robed brethren of the Cult of Seth lay.

I climbed unsteadily to my feet. The statue of Seth, the cause of it all, was no more, its place on the altar filled by an oily, smoking patch something I did not care to look at too closely.

"Doctor!" Lestrade exclaimed, noticing me and hurrying to my side. "I would have been here an hour ago, but Mr Holmes expressly said - "

"I know, Lestrade. Just as well you're here now." I did not think it work explaining Holmes's uncharacteristic lack of judgement. I could not damage his reputation in such a way, angry as I had been with him.

"What the devil's been happening?" the inspector wondered.

"That will take time to explain. Is Mr William Ravensley all right?"

Lestrade appeared to have forgotten all about the boy. "I'll go and find out."

He bustled off, leaving me to look at the devastation around me. Bretherton was sitting covered in dust but otherwise unharmed. He stared at what had become of the gallery – at least three of the huge statues were damaged beyond repair, and several others had great chunks gouged from them, as well as scorch marks as though they had been touched by fire.

"Dear God," the hapless curator muttered, "Whatever will the governors say about this?"

Reassured that he was well, I turned to Holmes, and was pushed off my feet for the second time as Namin, having swiftly recovered himself, bolted for the doorway. I shouted to Lestrade, and Namin found himself neatly intercepted by four of the inspector's men. They dragged him away, screaming and yelling abuse.

By the time I was standing once more, Sarah had beaten me to Holmes's side, and was crouching over him, concern etched on her pretty face. "It's all right," she said when I reached her, "he's alive. I think that torch caught him across the head." She gently touched Holmes's scalp, where the flames had scorched his hair. He did not react – I bent down and checked him over, finding him to be breathing shallowly, barely conscious.

"There is more to it than that," I replied, knowing that his collapse had been more to do with his abused constitution finally crumbling than a glancing blow from a torch. He had simply been unable to stand up to Namin any longer – I did not want to imagine what might have happened had the end not come when it did. "He has not been well for weeks."

"I'm sorry. I wish we could have got here sooner," she said, and I sensed that she meant the words.

"You knew what was going to happen," I said, suddenly realising the significance of their appearance at the last moment. "That's why you sent those messages. How did you know?"

She hesitated, mouth open as if to begin an explanation, but before she could speak her friend was there behind us, looking impatient to be gone.

"Come on, Sarah, time we were off," he said, glancing over his shoulder to where Lord Harcourt, who had apparently followed Lestrade into the building, was conducting a rather emotional reunion with his son. "We don't want the police asking awkward questions, do we?"

"True. But 'who are you' and 'where do you come from' are quite simple questions to ordinary people," Sarah replied.

He flashed her that toothy grin. "Who wants to be ordinary? Come on – time and tide and all that."

"No," she said, turning back to Holmes. "We can't just leave him, not like this. It's partly our fault he was involved."

"Sarah," the man in the scarf began in a warning tone.

"If you wish to leave I cannot stop you," I said, not wanting to be the cause of an argument, however indirectly, "though I have no doubt that Inspector Lestrade will wish to speak with you. I would appreciate a little help to get Holmes back to Baker Street, however, if it is not too much trouble." Bretherton was still gazing in shock at the damage to the museum, and I could see that I would get no assistance from that quarter. "If you could find us a cab, I would be most grateful."

The Doctor looked torn, but nodded and strode off, neatly avoiding a curious Lestrade and vanishing through the doorway. Sarah helped me to lift Holmes, who groaned, eyelids fluttering, as his head lolled against my shoulder. I felt my old wound twinge as I took his weight, Sarah taking his other side and supporting as best she could, for he was not a small man.

He friend had found a cab in record time, and took over, assisting me to settle Holmes upon the seat. I turned back to thank him, only to find that he was already some distance away, waiting beneath a street lamp for Sarah to join him. A little up the street a police constable was attempting to reassure residents that everything was quite safe, and that the explosion (for such I could only assume it had been) was nothing to worry about.

"He hates goodbyes," Sarah said in explanation.

"I must thank you, both of you. If you had not arrived when you did - "

"The Doctor's good at last-minute rescues." She smiled, and held out a hand to me. "It's been an honour to meet you, Doctor Watson."

Rather disconcerted by her abruptness, I shook her hand. Her grip was firm, authoritative. "And you, Miss - ?"

"Smith. Sarah Jane Smith. Perhaps we'll meet again, if the Doctor doesn't think it'll cause the universe to collapse or something."

"Sarah!" called the man in the scarf.

"I'm coming!" She pulled something from her pocket and pressed it into my hand. I looked down and realised that it was my revolver. I had forgotten all about it. Sarah glanced into the cab at the unconscious Holmes. "Don't worry. It's only 1897 – he'll be fine," she said incomprehensibly, and skipped off to join her friend, turning back for a moment to wave.

Their conversation drifted back to me on the night air as I climbed into the cab.

"So what exactly happened when I shot the statue?" Sarah asked, tucking her arm through the Doctor's.

"You activated the automatic self-destruct mechanism," he replied. "The Osirans were nothing if not ingenious."

"They taunted Sutek by giving him the means of his escape, and then blowing it up the moment he got too close?"

"Of course. What better way to increase the misery and frustration of his imprisonment?"

"Sneaky bunch. He'll try again."

"We know he will. We've been there, remember?"

"How could I forget…"

Their voices faded into the darkness. I glanced at the sky, the moon still tinted red as the eclipse faded, and wondered exactly what they had been talking about.

Mrs Hudson was still up when we returned to 221B, almost as if she had known that something would happen.

"I couldn't sleep," she said when I enquired, "there's something nasty in the air tonight , Doctor. Got more than a little to do with that red moon, I don't doubt."

I could not disagree. Holmes came back to himself a little as I helped him up the stairs, though he was dreadfully pale and weak, unresisting of my ministrations and limp as a rag doll as I put him to bed. He began to shiver and cough, and I wrapped him in blankets, checking his temperature and hoping that the fever of a few days before would not return.

As I folded his clothes, I felt something in the pocket of his waistcoat – drawing it out I discovered it to be the wooden hand, still clutching its strangely-shaped key.

I stared at it for some time, before, on an impulse, I threw it into the sitting room fire. The statue was gone, no one would be needing it any more. The god Seth was once more consigned to the pages of Egyptian mythology.

As I watched it burn, however, for a moment I could have sworn I heard a voice, far away, screaming in rage…

To be concluded…


	15. Epilogue

**And so we reach the end...**

**Thank you to those who have stuck with me all this way, and have left such lovely and much appreciated reviews. And one of Mrs Hudson's cakes to KCS, who spotted the reason for Holmes's singed hair. :)**

**The usual disclaimer: Holmes, Watson et al do not belong to me. _Doctor Who_ elements are copyright to the BBC and the late Robert Holmes.**

**If you'd like to know more about the story _Pyramids of Mars_, check out the synopsis on Wikipedia.**

* * *

THE HAND OF SETH

EPILOGUE

"It's a rum do, Doctor, and no mistake," Lestrade said the following morning when I took the remains of the scarab to Scotland Yard on Holmes's instructions. Too weak to leave his bed, he had been quite clear in his orders to me regarding the winding up of the case.

"It is indeed," I agreed, glad to be rid of the matter. I did not entirely understand what had happened the night before, but I did know that I wished to play no further part in it. The police could tie up the loose ends, with the help of the evidence Holmes had collected. It seemed that he wanted no more of it either – he had said quite definitely that he was happy to allow Lestrade to take the credit. The inspector had been surprised, but grateful.

"We found a whole trunkful of these in the house in Holborn," he said when I handed him the cigar box and he looked inside. "Unpleasant little things aren't they?"

"That is your murder weapon, Lestrade," I told him. "I hope that none of your officers have touched them."

"Indeed they have not!" The inspector grimaced in distaste and handed the box to a passing constable. He paused, then said, "Why did they really do it, do you think? All that hocus pocus? What sort of man gets it into his head that he can change the established order of things?"

"A disturbed one, " I replied, fully believing Namin to be quite mad given what I had seen. "No sane man would even attempt such a thing."

"And this voice you all claim to have heard – we'll have a job trying to explain that to a judge!"

"Did you not find any way of creating the voice? No hidden means of amplification?" Holmes had offered no explanation for the voice, and I had not asked for one. It was rare - practically unheard of - for us to find something my celebrated friend could not understand.

"Nothing. I had considered the presence of another man, behind the scenes, but we found no evidence of one. If anyone was there, they must have disappeared pretty sharpish. But we've not managed to track down any of the others, either – only Namin and his friend are down in the cells."

I frowned. There had been about eight of the cultists in the museum that I had counted, a full six more in addition to Lestrade's prisoners. I had grappled with several of them, and yet I could recall seeing only Namin and Naseem actually taken into custody. "You caught none of them?"

Lestrade shook his head. "They somehow slipped by the men I left guarding the exits and vanished into thin air! I can't understand it, but…well," he added, lowering his voice conspiratorially, "I shouldn't really be telling you this, Doctor, but between you, me and the gatepost, I've been leant on."

"Leant on?" I repeated.

"The chief constable has had a quiet word, just as someone rather highly-placed has had a quiet word with him. The particulars of the case are so…incredible that it is preferred that they don't get out."

"Someone highly-placed? In the government?" I sensed the hand of Mycroft Holmes in this. It would not look good for the government if it became known that they had been duped by a criminal claiming to be the Egyptian ambassador.

"That's not for me to say. I only mention it because…well, your writing, Doctor. They might - "

"Yes, yes, thank you for the warning, Lestrade." I had already decided that this was one case that would not see publication. I doubted if my readers would believe it.

"There was no trace of the other people at the museum, either," Lestrade said after a slightly uncomfortable pause. "That man in the scarf, and the girl."

I could guess what was coming. If Holmes had failed to track down Miss Smith and her friend , then the police were unlikely to succeed. "They have disappeared as well."

"Completely! I can tell you, Doctor, this vanishing of crucial witnesses will be the undoing of me!"

"Surely not, Lestrade. You solved the case, after all, found Lord Amsworth's murderers."

He looked a little mollified by my words, but said, "Not without Mrs Holmes. We'd all still be scratching out heads over this one without him. How is he?"

"Very ill," I said. There was no reason to deceive Lestrade. "This case has only exacerbated his condition. He will be out of action for some time." _Possibly permanently_, I added silently.

Lestrade raised his eyebrows. "Well, do what you can for him, Doctor. We need him barging in and telling us where we're all going wrong. But don't tell him I said that, will you?" he asked hastily.

I promised I would not. As I took my leave of him, I overheard two of the constables talking at the front desk – one of them I recognised as the poor fellow who had been left in charge of the strange blue box on the corner of Wigmore Street.

"Gone? How can it be gone? What would you use to lift something like that?" the other man wondered.

"Don't rightly know, but it's gone all the same. Up and vanished during the night," the constable said. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear someone had magicked it away!"

When I returned to Baker Street, having run a few errands and dropped in at the surgery on the way, I was surprised by Mrs Hudson informing me that Holmes had a visitor.

"Not another client, I hope," I said as she took my coat.

"I should say not, Doctor," the good woman replied, "I would never have allowed him past the front door had he been. It's a specialist, sir, from Harley Street. Name of Doctor Agar. He called two days ago while you were out."

In the confusion that had reigned over the weekend I had completely forgotten that Mycroft had asked Agar to call on Monday. I cursed inwardly, as I had been intending to be present when the doctor arrived, in case it proved necessary to persuade Holmes not to dismiss the man out of hand. It seemed, however, that my intervention had not been needed. "And Mr Holmes agreed to receive him?" I asked, a little incredulously.

"Not at first, but the doctor produced a letter from Mr Mycroft Holmes. When Mr Holmes had read it he told me to show Doctor Agar in. They've been talking for over an hour now, sir, and I was told not to disturb them on any account," Mrs Hudson said, casting me a concerned glance.

I forced myself to smile at her. "That's quite all right, Mrs Hudson. I was going up to my own room anyway. I have some work to do."

She looked relieved. "Very good, sir."

I made my way upstairs with a heavy tread. Though I naturally understood the need for confidentiality between doctor and patient, I was Holmes's physician (when allowed to be), and I felt a little put out at being kept behind the closed sitting room door. For a while I remained in my room, attempting to bring my record of the Harcourt case to some conclusion despite knowing that international implications would consign it to the tin box in the vaults of Cox and Co for many years to come. Eventually, though, my curiosity got the better of me, and I tiptoed back down to the landing to find the door still firmly shut. Beyond it I could hear Holmes's voice, strident for a moment before descending into a burst of painful coughing, and another, low and insistent, that I took to belong to Agar.

Mrs Hudson, bringing me a cup of tea, passed no comment when she found me sitting on the stairs. She merely nodded towards the door and raised her eyebrows. I shook my head in reply, and she went below once more.

At length the door opened, and I bolted back up the stairs as fast as my game leg would allow. Through the banisters I saw a tall, spare man with a neatly-trimmed moustache and sharp brown eyes emerge and head immediately for the seventeen steps that would take him to the front door. He looked precise, professional, and I hope fervently that he had managed to succeed with Holmes where I had failed.

The waiting had been interminable, but I still forced myself to give Holmes some more time before intruding upon him, not wishing to press him for details immediately. At last, however, I could wait no more, and descended to the sitting room.

I knocked upon his bedroom door. "Holmes?" I called softly. When there was a no reply, I entered the darkened room cautiously, closing the door behind me. "Holmes?"

After a pause, a weak voice said, "It's all right, Watson. I am not dead yet."

"That is only due to the merest chance. None of us should have been there last night."

Two tired grey eyes glared at me through the gloom. "I suppose you too believe me to be losing my faculties. I am fit for nothing more than retirement, for mental stagnation and a quiet, tedious occupation somewhere. I might expect such from Mycroft, but I had thought better of you, Watson."

"I think nothing of the kind, as well you know. Such words are unworthy of you, but I will allow them to pass because you are not well," I said, drawing up the chair from his dressing table and taking a seat beside the bed. He lay there, listless, as I had left him that morning. All the life appeared to have been drained from him – swaddled in blankets he seemed shrunken and peculiarly vulnerable, a state with which I would never normally have associated him. Those dark circles which had taken up residence beneath his eyes were more pronounced than before, and the hair singed by the falling torch had been cut back, giving him a rather ragged appearance that sat oddly with his sharp features. "You must realise that you cannot go on like this," I said. "Will you tell me what Agar had to say?"

I heard something that sounded like a snort, though there was little breath behind it. When he spoke it was in barely more than a whisper, but with a touch of his old waspishness. "It seems I am to be hounded out of London and away from my work. He has declared that I must have absolute rest immediately or face dire consequences."

As this was little more than I had myself been saying for the past few days, I guessed that I would not hear the full details. Even now Holmes has never divulged the content of that long conversation with Agar, but it had the desired effect: in a few short weeks the cocaine would be gone, buried on a Cornish beach, and would never be mentioned again.

"As it happens," I said, attempting to inject some cheer into my voice for his sake, "I have been offered the use of a cottage in Cornwall for a time. A friend thought me in need of a holiday."

"_Holiday_." Holmes still managed to invest the word with all the venom he usually reserved for it. Then he sighed, a look of dejection passing over his drawn face. "I suppose if I am to be buried somewhere the West Country will do as well as any."

"I will make the arrangements tomorrow. A bit of sea air will do us both the world of good, I'm sure."

"You always were optimistic, Watson," he said, and lapsed into silence.

When he said no more for some minutes I assumed him to have fallen asleep, and rose to leave the room. I had hardly left my chair, however, when he coughed, hard, and groaned, a grimace creasing his face and his hands convulsively gripping the blankets as he was taken by one of those infrequent spasms that currently plagued him. I crossed back to his side immediately, closing my hand over his and squeezing it reassuringly.

"It's all right, old fellow, it's all right," I said soothingly as the moment passed and he relaxed with a gasp. "It's all right, we'll get through this."

"Perhaps…" For a moment he struggled to breathe "…perhaps I should go…to Cornwall…alone…"

My grip tightened around his fingers. "I'm not leaving you, Holmes, and don't even think of asking it."

His eyes flickered open, a genuine question in them as though he were asking how I could remain so loyal when he had treated me with less than my due.

"Friendship, Holmes," I told him, though he had spoken no words.

After a moment he nodded, and his eyes closed once more. "I don't deserve you, Watson."

"That doesn't matter. Just rest now."

I sat with him until he did drift off. Two weeks later, once he was well enough to travel, we made the journey into Cornwall, and so began the dreadful business I have chronicled elsewhere under the title of _The Adventure of the Devil's Foot_.

On our return, to my dismay and Holmes's fury, we discovered that only one of the two men originally involved was to be prosecuted for the murder of Lord Amsworth. Namin had somehow vanished, leaving his confederate to take the full punishment of the law. Lestrade would say nothing on the matter, claiming once again that he had been 'leant on' by a higher authority.

Holmes saw even more clearly than I the influence of his brother, but when questioned Mycroft quite plainly told his younger sibling in no uncertain terms that if he did not desist in his line of enquiry, there was likely to be an official presence in Baker Street before long. Holmes retired from the fray with ill grace, forever after referring to the case as a failure and exhorting me to put all thought of ever publishing it from my mind.

The destruction of the Egyptian sculptures at the British Museum was put down to anarchists, and Bretherton, whether by his own choice or the decision of the museum's governors, returned to Italy to study his beloved Roman remains. The Harcourt family retired to their estates in the country, there to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, and, after a suitable period had elapsed, celebrate the marriage of William Ravensley (by then succeeded to his late brother's title) and Lady Amanda Barrington.

We never saw Miss Sarah Jane Smith or her strange friend again.

There was, however, a coda to the affair.

It did not come for some years, not until after Holmes had retired from practice and gone to keep bees on the Sussex Downs. One day a letter arrived from him, enclosing a cutting from a local newspaper.

It appeared that a large house belonging to an eminent professor had, quite suddenly and without warning or apparent cause, burned to the ground, destroying a valuable collection. The professor's name? Marcus Scarman, the celebrated Egyptologist we had met briefly in connection with the Hand of Seth. The man's brother, Laurence, and the local doctor had been found dead in Laurence's home at the lodge upon the estate, but of the professor there was no sign. He was wanted by the police for murder.

Holmes had circled the last paragraph for my particular attention: Scarman had had a house guest, also missing. That man's name was Ibrahim Namin.

_It would appear_, Holmes wrote underneath, _that at last the gods have had their revenge_.

FIN.


End file.
